Naval Combat in Fudge
Imagine, if you will, your musketeers are in hot pursuit of their most hated opponent, after a few impressive combat sequences (most of which involved swinging from chandeliers), the villain has escaped by ship. What can our heroes do now? Wait around the port hoping to encounter their arch rival again? Of course not! Set sail with these rules for naval combat in Fudge and prepare to shiver some timbers. Perfect for a swashbuckling game, but the rules can be easily modified for any setting where large ships try to destroy each other.
Whether you're a pirate looking for fame and glory on the high seas, or a merchant looking to make an easy profit, combat on the high seas during the Age of Exploration was a fact of life. These rules provide a quick and entertaining resolution to any naval combat.
Building a Ship
Before you can engage in naval combat, you have to have a ship. A ship can be built roughly the same way a character is, with a set of Attributes, and even Gifts and Faults. There are 5 main Attributes for a ship as listed below.
- Hull: The strength and size of a ship's Hull. A better Hull can both carry more cargo and is more resilient to damage. If a Hull's level is ever brought below Terrible, the ship is sunk.
- Guns: The number of cannons that can be fired at an opponent. For simplicities sake all cannons are assumed to have enough gunpowder and shot.
- Speed: How fast the ship can go. This is an abstract Attribute, and cannot be converted directly to knots.
- Maneuverability: How effective the ship is at changing direction. This Attribute goes hand in hand with Speed most of the time. A more maneuverable ship is a more dangerous one.
- Crew: The quality of the people manning the ship. Used to determine the fighting strength of a boarding action and effectiveness at making repairs.
Based on your assessment of a ship's Attributes, you can call the ship what you will. A ship with high levels of Speed and Maneuverability could be called a Sloop. Ships with Great Hull and Guns could be called a Galleon, it's up to you to decide how descriptive you want to be.
The Combat
The ship is built and ready for some combat. Naval combat can be broken into three distinct aspects: rounds, turns, and actions. Each round is the time it takes for every ship to have at least one turn. During each turn a ship can perform a certain number of actions. Once those actions are complete the turn for that ship is over and it's the opponent's turn. Once every ship's turn is over, that is the end of that round, and a new round begins.
Pre-turn Information
Weather gauge
According to the dictionary, the weather gauge is, "The position of a ship to the windward of another. (b) Fig.: A position of advantage or superiority; advantage in position." At the beginning of every other round, or less often depending on the whims of the wind, roll 4dF. If the end result is negative, the enemies have the weather gauge; if positive, the PC's ship has the weather gauge. This advantage increases the ship's speed rating by one level.
Tactics Check
At the beginning of every round the captain of each vessel makes an opposed Tactics roll, the winner of this roll gets to take the first turn this round.
During the Turn
Performing Actions
Every turn allows for at least one action. However skilled captains can increase the number of actions he can take by two or even three. Before making any actions, the captain of a ship can decide to risk doing multiple actions during his turn. The captain needs to make a successful roll against Tactics, Captaining, or similar. If the result is Great, he can make two actions in the turn. If the result is Legendary he can make three actions. However if the result is Mediocre or worse, the captain made an error in judgment and loses all actions for his turn. So trying to take more actions is risky, but may be worth it.
Actions
- Move: You can either move away from your opponent or towards her. If the opponent doesn't want you to move, you must make an opposed Speed roll, with the winner getting her way. For simplicities sake, there are three ranges in this type of combat: "out of cannon range", "within cannon range", and "within boarding range." A successful Speed roll will allow you to move from one range to the adjacent one. A ship can move from "within cannon range" into either "boarding range" or "out of cannon range", but a ship that is currently "out off cannon range" cannot move directly into "boarding range" in a single action. Regardless of how many actions a ship can take it can only move one range increment per turn.
- Sailing Away: Very rarely will you find two naval combatants willing to fight each other until both ships are destroyed; often one ship will try to make a run for it. In order to successfully flee naval combat, a ship has to stay out of cannon range for three consecutive rounds. For every full turn that a ship stays out of cannon range that ship gains a temporary +1 level to its Speed Attribute. After three turns it is assumed that the fleeing ship made it over the horizon. It can still be tracked, but for the time being the combat is over.
- Maneuver: Make an opposed Maneuverability roll, with the faster ship getting a +1 bonus. The victor of this roll was able to out maneuver his opponent, allowing for a bonus on the victor's next action. This bonus equals the Relative Degree of the opposed Maneuverability roll.
- Attack: You attack your opponent, if you are within cannon range. You can choose to target a part of the ship in an effort to disable that part. For example, targeting the sails of a ship will decrease its Speed. Your Guns roll must be equal to the Hull level of your target, and for every level beyond that you can take another level off of targeted Attribute. If the Hull ever drops to below Terrible, the ship is sunk. If the Crew is reduced to below Terrible, the entire crew is either dead or wounded, and will no longer be able to resist.
If you want a little more randomness in this system instead of allowing a captain to target certain aspects of the ship roll 1d6 and use the resulting number as the area of the ship that was hit,
1- Hull
2 - Guns
3 - Speed
4 - Maneuverability
5 - Crew
6 - attacking captain's choice - Barrage: A barrage is a special type of attack. You can only perform a barrage when you can take multiple actions during the turn. By giving up the multiple actions, you get to add a +1 bonus for each action you could have taken to your Guns roll for this turn only.
- Boarding: Many ship battles end with a boarding party trying to take over the other ship. In order to board a ship, the ships must be within boarding range. Make an opposed Crew roll, with the winning ship landing her crew onto the opponent's ship. If the roll is a tie, the assault was repelled and can be tried again next turn. Once the boarding party is on board, normal Fudge combat rules take over.
- Make Repairs: The crew of a ship can make quick repairs on parts of the ship during battle. Make an unopposed Crew roll of Great or better to repair one Attribute of the ship, aside from the Crew itself. Each successful roll will repair one level of the Attribute; however these repairs can only bring up an Attribute one less its original. For full repairs a ship has to go to the docks.
PCs in Naval Combat
It is assumed that all PCs and important NPCs survive the naval combat, no one gets killed by incoming cannon fire, and if the ship happens to be sunk, all the PCs miraculously end up clinging to the same part of the broken ship.
Naval combat may not be very much fun for most PCs. Aside from giving advice to the captain, there isn't much that the heroes can do. However there is a risky alternative, each PC can choose a part of the ship to assist, any of the ships Attributes can be aided. At the beginning of each turn, the PCs that want to help can choose an Attribute to aid. Whenever a roll is needed from that Attribute the player can make another roll, and the better roll is taken. A bonus can be added for PCs that have skills relating to the area that they are helping in, for example someone with Great Leadership may warrant a bonus when working with the Crew. However there is some risk to this assistance. Anytime that part of the ship is attacked, the PC must make a Good or better survival roll against Fortitude, Health, Luck or similar. Failure means that the PC is knocked out for the rest of the combat, or possibly mortally wounded.
Deciding victory
A ship is considered victorious when the enemy ship is sunk, its crew is incapacitated, or they surrender. An optional rule to consider when plundering ships is to take into account how much damage was dealt. If a ship's Hull was reduced to Terrible, that probably means a lot of the cargo was destroyed, so many pirates use the threat of violence instead of actually destroying their opponents. It's much more profitable that way.
Conclusion
Now you are ready to sail the high seas looking for adventure using Fudge. As with Fudge itself, there are numerous options that can be added on. With a little modification, this system could be used for space opera combat. I will, however, leave those modifications as an exercise for the reader.
Additional resources
- GURPS Swashbucklers - The book that made me want to run a swashbucklers campaign, now an e-book at e23.
- Sailing Ships Archive - A nice little site that has got information on various sailing ships, and has a picture gallery as well.
- Pirates of the Caribbean - Yet another fine website for learning about pirates and their ships.
