Hey,
since Vikings were, you know, seafarers, and attacked using, you know, ships, I thought we might need some sea battle systems that at least simplified a few of the encounters where two fifty-foot ships with forty guys on each assaulting one another might be resolved slightly faster than with the original RGS. So last weekend, I whipped together a few basic rules and tested them with my group. The result is this:
Fate of the Norns: Naval Quick Battle 1. Setup Treat each participating ship as a character with Essence and Destiny (and thus Physical, Mental and Spiritual runes) but no powers or skills. These runes represent the ship's crew size and skill in Ranged Combat (P), Maneuverability (M) and Defense (S) and are allocated before the combat when the crewmembers determine whether they will be firing arrows, doing the rowing or protecting the crew by acting as shieldmen. EXAMPLE: The Starfarer is a small (35-foot) Lv20 dragonship with a motivated crew, destined by the Norns for greatness. It has 10 Essence, 5 Destiny. These, for example, could be distributed 4P, 4M and 2S for a fast offensive layout, or to 1P, 3M and 5S for drawing fire away from other, more vulnerable ships, or any other combination of P, M and S depending how the crew is distributed.
If at least one of the ships decides to travel with sails set, randomly determine the dominant wind direction for the battlefield, or if one of the participants has a tactical choice of when to battle, allow them to determine the dominant wind direction. Name one of the six directions of a hex field as that direction.
Draw Initiative as you would at the beginning of a normal RGS combat.
2. Wyrd At the beginning of each turn, each ship Wyrds as though it were a character. P runes drawn determine Ranged Combat, M runes drawn determine Maneuverability and S runes drawn determine Defense. This is this ship's Battle Pile for the turn.
If player characters are to play a more heroic part, each of them, after Wyrding, may pick one of their Runes and add them to the Battle Pile, thus strengthening the crew's efforts in that regard.
3. Preparation Each ship may choose to set aside from their Battle Pile:
1 P rune for a battle cry that increases that ship's Destiny by 1 for the next turn 1 M rune for a +1 or -1 of that ship in the Initiative Order for the next turn as many S runes as they want to heal that many Wounded runes during next turn's Preparation phase. Healed Runes return to the Essence pile.
These runes are set aside secretly and revealed at the same time. After that, they are returned to the ship's Essence Pile.
4. Combat In initiative order, each ship may a) move and turn b) fire at one other ship within 5 hexes c) declare a Boarding attack at an adjacent ship a) and b) may be done in any order, c) must be the last thing that ship does this turn.
4a. Maneuvering Each ship may move a number of hexes equal to its Maneuverability. However, it may only move into the direction its bow is facing and may only turn one hex-side per hex moved. This turn may be taken before or after moving into the new hex.
If the ship has their sails set and is traveling into the exact dominant wind direction during its first hex move, it gets an additional 2 Maneuverability for this turn. If it is traveling one hex side to the left or the right of the dominant wind direction, it gets an additional 1 Maneuverability for this turn.
4b. Ranged Attacking Each ship may fire at one other ship with bows and arrows if it is within 5 hexes. This attack deals damage equal to the Ranged Combat (R) runes of the attacker minus the Defense (S) runes in the defender's combat pile. Defense runes that prevent damage that way are moved to the defending ship's Essence after the attack is resolved.
If a ship has their sails set, only ranged attacks from the ships broadsides have this full effect. If the target is within the ship's bow or stern firing arc, the attack is Weak instead. The bow and stern firing arc are drawn by taking the first hex in front and in the back of the ship and drawing a cone forward and backward, starting from those hexes.
Each point of damage infliced leads to the other ship losing that many Runes from Essence to their Wounded pile. If there are no further Runes in Essence, instead take these Runes from the Battle Pile AND take the same number of Runes from the Wounded pile and put them into the Dead Pile. These are lives lost during the battle.
Also, if the heroes actively support their crew, each point of damage taken moves one of their Runes into their own Death pile.
(continuing right after I had lunch)
Last edited by Taleweaver on Tue Aug 26, 2014 7:02 am, edited 3 times in total.
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