5 Common Nautical Campaign Mistakes in Dungeons & Dragons

[@theDMLair]

MARITIME & MADNESS | Ship and naval combat ruleset and the Seas of Tasslebrook Adventure Arc Get Maritime & Madness on the DM Lair Store here: the-dm-lair.myshopify.com/products/maritime-madness-lair-magazine-24-december-2022-issue

[@michaelfoye1135]

Completely off topic, but as you brought it up, now I'm curious about your missionary work?

[@taylorvansickle8756]

@@michaelfoye1135 I was also wondering about that too... Maybe he's Mormon?

[@Cosmic_demonartist]

L

[@cermence3931]

0:10 Random Encounter after Random Encounter after Random Encounter after... 4:40 Solution 7:18 Running Crappy Naval Combat (rules should be concise, easy to pick up...) 12:12 Not capitalizing on the Nautical Backdrop 12:50 Examples of situations while sailing 16:22 Fumbling Underwater Combat 18:40 Tracking depth/height 22:17 Having an empty World

[@Skrighk]

Bless you, may your seas be calm

[@tantalus_complex]

God, thank you. 2 minutes in while starting chores and I was already searching for another video because this video needs editing and fewer digressions.

[@goliathcleric]

Actually, fire on a ship at sea is a massive danger and very difficult to extinguish. That's the reason all sailors in the US Navy are certified firefighters (or at least, they used to be, not sure anymore). Even though you're surrounded by water, there's often no way to get that water to the fire and it just turns into a graveyard of burn victims. Grisly stuff.

[@theDMLair]

That makes sense. :D

[@karsonkammerzell6955]

No official certification, but we absolutely were trained to don equipment (and timed), maneuver the hose in small spaces, concerns on backdraft, training spaces where they'd light the floors on fire, etc. Each of the divisions on the ship had individuals dedicated to fill in if a fire-based emergency required more people than we had normally allocated to it. In fact in the modern Navy we're also trained on what we need to use for different classifications of fire; flammable metals, electrical fires, primary methods to extinguish them alongside the secondary 'oh shit' method, etc. Class Delta fires, for example, generate their own 'triangle' (fuel, heat, oxygen) where you cannot actually cut off one from the others; the metal of landing gear on aircraft can be Delta and you just dump it into the ocean because you cannot actually put it out. Just jettison and let Poseidon sort it out, lol.

[@goliathcleric]

@@karsonkammerzell6955 ah, that certainly sounds like the military. All the training, none of the certifications. I went army myself, so I only knew what I was told by my father, but that certainly runs the same as we did.

[@jameskristofferson1488]

They are, i went through firefighting training and reoccurring firefighting training

[@valeri0n38]

Retired Navy here and yes, all of the training to fight fires can be intense. In all my years I only ever had to fight one actual fire and that wasn't even on a Navy ship. We pulled into Busan where a merchant had also moored. The merchant had, on the foggy night before, collided with another ship which resulted in a fire in the cargotainers. The merchant specifically requested our help so a bunch of us were assigned to go help fight the fire. Nothing really exciting, mostly just pouring water on the cargotainers to keep them cool while plans were made on how to get to the fire itself. The most excitement I saw was when a Korean firefighter tried to bring an electric saw aboard to cut into containers. One of the guys in charge, a big, burly guy, lost it at this small Korean dude, grabbed the saw, and threw it across the deck. Fun times. Oh, and if you're ever interested in what the Navy Fire Fighting training video looks like, search for it here on KZbin: Learn Not To Burn. It has actual footage of the accident that led to the worst fire in US Naval history, the USS Forrestal.

[@O4C209]

Additional thing I did in my nautical campaign was treat the ship as a combo tavern/ home base. Just having a short role play section where food or Grog is handed out, or plans are discussed really brings the ship to life.

[@twilightgardenspresentatio6384]

Player ships are home base, enemy ships are dungeon terrain

[@inthefade]

Maybe it is a good idea to have the ship be run entirely by NPCs so that where the players want to go is a negotiation.

[@oystersaucee_]

@@inthefade thats how ive been thinking, im prepping a game of 4 PC'S and im thinking 4 NPC's on the crew would be perfect, especially having the captain be an NPC at first so my players can earn/fumble their way into it

[@ronly_driver]

Gonna be DMing a nautical for my party in the next few months(gotta finish the current adventure with our current DM) and all of us are very interested in pirate things(SoT, OP, etc) so I'm tryinf to make it very apparent that being a pirate on the sea won't come without danger(speccing out a bronze dragon and some lawmen for the inevitable early streak of murderhoboism) but since we have a 9 man party, I'm gonna have their positions on the crew based on stat combos, which I think will be interesting if a character that normally rushes into battle winds up in a position requiring tact and patience. Everybody is pumped for it, and I want to make something special for the crew regardless of how they decide to play it.

[@sauce7670]

new DM here! and I decided I wanted to run a high seas campaign for my first game ever and its been a blast but I really had to develop my setting first. I made a "bermuda triangle" type area of the sea thats distorted by wild magic and its a place where the plains converge and all kinds of strange places and monsters and treasures can be found there. But I made sure that there was a large "hub city" where players can get a change of scenery away from the strange islands and situations out to sea and its amazing to me how much my players appreciate dry land after many sessions at sea so I make sure theres always something to do that develops the city and its characters. My irish satyr bar keeper is a sight for sore sea salted eyes for my group every time they return "home"

[@xylonpesquera8605]

This is my favorite dnd KZbin channel. One of the few that doesn't swear so I can share the videos with my little sisters. These videos have helped my dming immensely.

[@theDMLair]

Awesome, so happy to hear it! I avoid swearing 1) because I just don't talk that way in real life and 2) family friendly means the content is more accessible and appropriate for all audiences. I believe that in almost all cases, using adult language adds little value to content, whereas removing it does.

[@barrysargent3104]

I agree completely. I run a campaign for my wife and 2 kids and DMLair is a channel I recommend to my son because he DMing a party of school friends. I just can't let them watch critical role or even GinnyDi. unfortunately she has been curaing on a regular basis. It might make her look cool to some people but that dont make it right.

[@twilightgardenspresentatio6384]

I used to let my daughter watch Ginny Di but it gets adult in there. I like it, I just can’t share it.

[@Sadew_Sadew]

@@barrysargent3104 Not saying this is the situation between you and your daughter, but when I was a kid I learned to swear because it was one of the few ways to get adults to look at me as anything but a kid. Bad habit to get into. Could be worth asking her why she thinks it's necessary.

[@barrysargent3104]

@@Sadew_Sadew I can see where you are coming from and that is some good advice for a parent but GinnyDi is a dnd KZbinr, that I do enjoy her videos and I am subscribed. I just notices she has been more vulgar in her latest videos. But she is an adult and she has freedom. Taming the tongue is one of the hardest things to do. Thanks for your adviceSadew42? Are you 42 years old? I am.

[@michaelstowe2167]

I'm running a Ghosts of Saltmarsh campaign right now, and I'm excited to report that it's going really well! I can definitely vouch for Luke's advice here! I've made some of these mistakes, and the game got much better once they were corrected.

[@know-nothingmillennial3043]

I'm literally starting to make a nautical campaign this week so this was a crazy coincidence.

[@MJ-jd7rs]

If the group isn't getting horses, that means some combination of: 1) You've made gold too scarce, they can't afford them. 2) There's no time limit for the group, no 'running clock'. They can take however long they wish. 3) You've vastly underestimated the travel distances between where they're at and where they need to be.

[@Thenarratorofsecrets]

4) they got windwalk

[@theDMLair]

I feel like there are other reasons and possibilities besides it being the game master's fault.

[@sebastianleiva9278]

Ive found that new groups arent proactive enough to do thing like that. Might be biased but even harvesting monster hasnt really been a thing in my groups. Sad

[@sixoffcenter80]

I've heard a bit of conflicting information on this, but from what I understand while horses are good for shortish bursts of speed, humans have better endurance so the two pretty much level out with a full day's travel.

[@O4C209]

5) The players don't realize that's an option. You'd be surprised at how often you'll have a surprised look from the players when you have an npc mention getting a ride.

[@toddleatherman3431]

I’m working on a nautical campaign which is also my first every time DMing. I don’t know if it’s a bad idea but I’m really excited. The king is hosting this great boat race and he’s rooting for my party. Wish them luck 😂

[@StonksNZ]

@@toddleatherman3431 BROTHER??? IS THAT YOU???

[@toddleatherman3431]

@StonksNZ BRO, I THOUGHT I WE LOST YOU!

[@KermodeBear]

The biggest mistake I've ever experienced during a nautical campaign was the DM being very, very, very proud of his weather and sailing simulation system. We sat there for about two hours doing absolutely nothing while he rolled dice and told us what the weather was that day and if we were on course.

[@michaellove784]

You can buy small, colored mosaic tiles made of plastic from craft stores that perfectly fit in a battle grid. Each one counts as 5 ft off the ground and you can even glue some together so you're not knocking over squares. Every time someone tries to move a mini. We've used these for years and they've been super effective.

[@sleepinggiant4062]

Ships make great mobile headquarters. I remember the Pirates of Dark Water cartoon, and always wanted to try and capture that in a D&D campaign.

[@Trenell83]

I gotta give you a like on the Pirates of Dark Water. I still need to see the end since they never finished it and it might be an underrated cartoon series.

[@Raycheetah]

There was actually a Pirates of Dark Water RPG released in the '90s. I doubt copies are easy to come by, but an online search might turn something up. =^[.]^=

[@elfbait3774]

Lots of good advice. I would add to this that leaning into the cliches on this one is a good thing. Most people coming to a nautical campaign have various pirate movies in mind first and foremost with Sinbad and Jason the Argonauts being somewhere in there with a smattering of Hornblower, Mutiny on the Bounter, and Master and Commander. Regardless, mine every last ocean=going story you can. Nautical campaigns are perfect places for spooky coastal mansion, Lovecraftian horror, pirate shenanigans, curses, superstitions and everything in between. I run a campaign I call Vagabond Seas and have peppered it with strange races, interesting NPCs and organizations. A lot can be achieved by setting up interesting places and characters just like any other campaign. We had new and interesting games of chance, we had nautical-themes minor magic items like the Dead Man's Maw or Sea Charms. Also having your setting dotted with old ruins and local sea peoples is a good way to establish this as different from your normal land campaign. One of my players, of islander descent himself, wanted to make a character from a group of sea-dwelling, Polynesian-themed orcs. He used the half-orc stats and suddenly I had a whole new culture in my game. I also included the monkey goblins from one of the MtG crossovers as an exotic race and gave them the underlying story arc that nobody knew where they came from, not even them and they just sort of showed up in the area.

[@Seraphina-Rose]

I agree about leaning in to the stereotypes the players likely have. Pirates of the Caribbean has my group hyped!

[@minnion2871]

Don't forget the occasional derelict ship dungeon, that may or may not be haunted by undead.... Or heck have a shadow on their ship picking off the crew one by one and making more shadows until either everyone is dead, the shadows have been purged from the ship, or the survivors hop in a life-raft and burn the ship... Maybe give the players a map with a bunch of islands dotted on it, not all of them are labled and ask them.... Where do you want to sail to? (And maybe use a pawn to keep track of where the ship is on the map... or a marker to draw their course as they explore....

[@elfbait3774]

@@minnion2871 the list really does go on and on. There is plenty to have happen on and off the waves

[@Mr_GoR_]

I thought that Bludgeoning and Slashing all having disadvantage underwater *WAS* the rule... there's just a list of Piercing weapons and a note "These attack as normal" ? 😆

[@EilonwyG]

I am always looking for more Nautical adventure content. My world is an island world with vast oceans and complex underwater civilizations. This is absolutely perfect for me. Great advice!

[@mohawkgunsmith7569]

This episode and DM magazine has come at the absolute perfect time!!! I’m currently writing a fantasy steampunk campaign with floating worlds that the players can sail to, I’m going for a Treasure Planet feel with the flying ships. Can’t wait to go get the magazine!

[@theophrastusbombastus1359]

Have you played Skies of Arcadia before? That's a treasure trove waiting to be mined for ideas on a nautical campaign

[@mohawkgunsmith7569]

@@theophrastusbombastus1359 I haven’t, I’ll check it out thank you!

[@mileonaslionclaw2525]

13:56 as people have mentioned, fire on a ship is super dangerous, even more, so when those ships are usually made out of wood rope and cloth, which is why my pirate themed DnD character has a rule of “no fire magic on my ship!” After all, fire spreads, and it can spread pretty quick if not taken care of

[@krinkrin5982]

D&D 5e being the woos it is, fire magic doesn't create actual fire, and can't ignite stuff. Pathetic.

[@mileonaslionclaw2525]

@@krinkrin5982 and yet, fireball does exactly that. Pretty sure it says in the description that it ignites flammable objects. Once again, as long as it’s not on your ship, it is in fact the answer to every question.

[@krinkrin5982]

@@mileonaslionclaw2525 Just checked, and yes, it does. I have no idea where I read that then.

[@mileonaslionclaw2525]

@@krinkrin5982 some do, some don’t, it just depends on the spell I think

[@beverleybee1309]

A random piece of trivia, the hunchback of Notre Dame was written as a means of getting the building declared an historic monument. So, the cathedral was actually a main character in the story. The weird things to know when DMing. 😉

[@kyleward3914]

My campaign world is a giant ocean with islands, no continents. The fun thing about an island is that it can be a completely isolated location. Just like real-world islands are often home to unique creatures found nowhere else (see Madagascar or Australia, for example), an island in game can have odd monsters without it necessarily having to affect the rest of the world. I've put some things I wasn't sure whether I wanted in my world on one island somewhere just to try using them.

[@UberHypnotoad]

I have two lists in my nautical campaign: Events and places. Places are permanent locations with NPCs, loot, quests, rest, trade, etc. Events are more fungible on the map but may include, large changes in weather, encounters with either creatures or factions, lost floating items, or even a place that can only be found by chance because it moves (floating fishing town, giant island sea turtle, magical islands that only appear under specific conditions, ghost ships, etc.) With lots of content and places to stick plot hooks, hopefully my players don’t feel too restricted or bored. I also mixed in some obvious long term side quests if they choose to follow them (treasure maps, dragon balls, partial plans for a new type of ship that needs to be jig-sawed together, etc.)

[@cmorales018]

I’m making my first Pirate campaign now and this made me realize that as prepared as I thought I was I have sooo much more I can bring now!

[@megaairsoft15]

Depending on your surroundings even darkvision can be less than helpful in the midnight zone. Imagine there being no terrain cause you’re diving down, grayscale doesn’t do much to help if there’s nothing to see. Still dark and terrifying, especially if they’re the first ones to see the giant set of jaws coming right for the group

[@danickiminajjjj1179]

Im doing my first ever campaign as DM, and i decided on an ocean world with tons of tropical islands. I have five players joining and the finale battle planned out. Here to avoid classic mistakes, so thanks for this video.

[@357Dejavu]

I have had a few of these issues with my ship based game in 5e. I am planning an airship based game some time next year and I hope to avoid some of my previous mistakes.

[@haiku_king]

Mind sharing your mistakes? I wanna start one now :)

[@357Dejavu]

@@haiku_king mostly making things too complicated. I think the thing that worked the best is still allowing the players to do there actions but make the ship give them “lair” actions on the ships turn. The lair actions are things like steering the ship or firing the cannon. The only rule is that to do that “lair” actions you have to be with in 5 feet the thing thing you are using (cannon, wheel, rigging). This is helps players have more things to do rather than less when running a ship, they can still cast spells and fight and such just they get more to do on the ship…. Down side is it does slow it down.

[@haiku_king]

@@357Dejavu thanks! Any advice for exploration and wordbuilding? Making an entire world full of islands sounds very overwhelming

[@357Dejavu]

@@haiku_king I tend to build as I go. If I have an adventure planned in a swamp then the next island they find would be swampy. It does not mater which way they go. I do put it on the map though so if they sail back to a place they have already been then I do need to plan a little more. I tend to make a 1-2 sentence note about how they left an area when the party leaves.

[@aaron2923]

I am in the process of writing a nautical campaign and This has helped greatly, thank you!

[@RIVERSRPGChannel]

That’s funny, I just ran a session last weekend and they fought a kraken. The kraken was after them because they disturbed him using an earthquake spell on an island

[@mabbott093]

This comes in at the perfect time, I am about to run a nautical campaign in a couple weeks.Thanks GM Lair!

[@nathanrumm9092]

Actually made all the newbie DM mistakes in 1st campaign built my own world ran a nautical campaign with making some of these mistakes in early sessions. Now a year in much better. I learned quickly you want land and sea so I expanded the size of islands they would travel to instead of being small 2-3 mile islands some are 40-50 miles with 2-3 towns so the party now spends a couple sessions on an island then goes back to sea. That simple adjustment made it much more enjoyable all around. Great video wish I had it 18 months ago lol

[@Lazycandle]

For keeping track of three d movement in water you could use poker chips of a type of color just stack them Red for above 0 height Blue for below 0 height Each is the equivalent of five feet

[@sam7559]

2:34 legit I'm in a campaign that after our original plan of just hike though a mountain range instead of going around was foiled by the fact that a ancient white dragon exist, we stopped by a town a bought horses and a carriage for the travel by road around the mountains. It was something I brought up to do especially since I doubt a wizard would actually like walking by foot for 3 weeks to the destination given the party was level 3

[@Jdude217]

It is a very rare yet very satisfying thing when I have somehow by complete happenstance not fallen victim of any of the things on a list like this. Thank you, as I now know to actively avoid those scenarios as well.

[@corsaircaruso471]

I’ve been trolling around youtube for videos on Naval Campaigns, as I’m going to be including both naval and underwater content in my upcoming game. Thanks so much for the great advice!

[@ronly_driver]

Am currently designing a sea campaign for my party, I'm building very basic bones for about a dozen islands that the party can choose to go to(geography, population/society/kingdom,a few choices for monsters/villains). There will be random encounters, but I want to focus more on the crew keeping the ship intact than trying to kill them at sea before they can get to an island that I'm legitimately building from scratch. We're currently in the middle of our first module as a party, so I have at least 2 more months before I have to put on the crown and take us to sea.

[@mohawkgunsmith7569]

Also got a say you videos have been monumental in my progression as a DM from complete fumbling bumble jack to a fairly competent Wonder joe. THANK YOU!

[@AflacMan13]

What about this? A Nautical Campaign... but the PC's have been cursed as a ship crew. The curse states that they must never stray more than 1/4 of a mile from their ship, and may only step on land for no more than 1 hour at a time, or the curse will get worse, and they will be more deformed and take on various penalties. Then, as they progress in levels (Milestone will probably be best here) at say 4th, 9th, 14th, and 19th level, the curse's range and time on land increase exponentially, as they get stronger they can resist the curse better and better. At 4th it becomes a 1/2 mile and 2 hours. At 9th it becomes 1 mile and 4 hours. At 14th it becomes 2 miles and 8 hours, at 19th it becomes 4 miles and 16 hours. Then, if they manage to reach level 20, they finally discover that they are strong enough to finally break the curse, but then a good aligned deity shows up and shouts for them to stop just before they are able to break it, telling them that the only thing stopping the BBEG from being released from its eternal imprisonment is them staying cursed for all eternity. If they break it, the BBEG is released. If they keep it, they are cursed to their ship for the rest of eternity, but they become immortals. Buuut... the only way to be free of the curse AND defeat the BBEG and ACTUALLY save the world... is to break the curse and release it, and then destroy the BBEG. And the BBEG is slowly corrupting the known universe, by drawing the Far Realm closer and closer towards the Prime Material Plane. the forces of Good are barely able to keep the BBEG's influence and pull at bay, but they are fighting a stalemate battle as the BBEG finds little ways to break through their protective barriers every so often, and the Good forces are not sure if they can keep it up forever. So, the only way to *ensure* the universe is *actually* saved, is to destroy said BBEG, but they have to release it to destroy it, and the only way to do that is to break the curse, but if they fail... they doom the universe forever. Thoughts?

[@IvanBarsch]

If you ever do this game I want to play in it

[@Kirrand]

I love running nautical games, the 3D combat is so fun to run. I am currently running a 3rd Pirate campaign that I have run over the last decade, I always end up with a waiting list for players because my table fills very quickly when I run these games.

[@danielpayne1597]

This is so timely! I've been working on my own system, except instead of for a nautical adventure, it's in space. I'll create random encounter tables but take Luke's words of advice to heart and also have planned events to ensure things stay interesting.

[@gamersgamestorm8291]

Thanks for the tips I’m running a Pirate Campaign soon so these are good tips. I was planning on doing most of these, but they are very useful advice. I never thought of having a fire on the ship.

[@Buttonpusher42]

Love the video. Seafaring campaigns are one of my favorite settings, now i think i want to send my story adrift for a couple sessions to take advantage of new plot ideas. Just a note about Hunchback of Notre Dame though... the book was written with the intent to celebrate the architecture design and beauty of the cathedral, because it was in disrepair and the best way to get funding is to attach a story that rich benefactors might like. Kind of worked too.

[@pintobean4858]

Hey, glad to be here. I had a game that failed that was nautical themed, which fell flat 😂 nice to get some tips, thank you!

[@MalloonTarka]

Hm. Underwater combat should give creatures resistance to fire, cold and acid, and vulnerability to thunder and lightning, I think.

[@geckoram6286]

I had my first game with a new group and we went from a cyberpunk secret government agency to buying a ship for 150 gold, and my table is so excited about a pirate adventure that I think I'll just make a nautical campaign. This video was really helpful on what to avoid, thanks

[@risw.3821]

My little brother and SIX of his friends want me to DM a nautical pirate game. Ive never DM'd for a party above 4 or 5. So I'm plenty nervous because I'm very out of my depth with not only it being a table of teenage boys, but also the player count, and campaign type. This video helped a ton!

[@whitevii1533]

As someone running Spelljammer 5e this is all highly relevant and very useful, thank you

[@OrKkTeKk]

I play a lot of 7th sea, for ship combat I have each player make a single die check based on there position. i.e. leadership check, gunner check, etc... then I use that to run the entire thing cinematicly until the ships meet. Afterwards the boarding becomes a standard map based combat scenario. My players love it and ship combat becomes a lot less cumbersome.

[@JadeyCatgirl99]

I had a nautical portion of the adventure I am running last Summer. The players got an old boat from a Duke, and were searching for an island with a dungeon on it. I made a grid with 64 charts, and different events on each chart. They were given an unlabeled chart to make notes on. That was great for a while in game, but doing a whole campaign of that would not have been fun. For the naval combat, the Monk jumped from their boat to the enemy's to attack. It was a really cool battle.

[@valeri0n38]

Since I finally got a chance to finish watching I realized I had one other tiny little gripe. And that was when you said that it would be boring to be sailing in the middle of the ocean with nothing to do and there should be *things* to go do. There are times when I wished we could have had an adventure to do while floating in the middle of the ocean because it IS boring. BUT! The good thing is that this is D&D! And I don't have to run an adventure that's completely boring.

[@genearmstrong9974]

We demand a video on your Point of Interest System!

[@oniminikui]

I don't have horses in my campaigns. Instead, I use riding birds (Axebeak stat block, but less aggressive). In one of my old D&D groups, we were playing 3.5. I was in the process of trying a new mechanic, where the characters would teleport back and forth from 2 different realities; one being D&D and the other being MURPG (Marvel Universe Role-Playing Game). Except the MURPG wasn't the marvel universe. I had books of NPCs, that I was going to use.

[@Seraphina-Rose]

This, and the new Maritime issue of Lair magazine, are a timely help. I'm prepping to run Saltmarsh in January, and need adventures to fill the gaps in the campaign. The encounter's in Lair are great, and I'll probably use bits from the three adventures in it too.

[@aarongarrett6271]

love it. recommendation for depth for battles. for those that use minis - there are many products the basically together that create elevated platforms. it gives a nice visual and creates visual perspective. they are usually clear plastic so it does not interfere visually with battle maps

[@cliffwarden5934]

I'm running a campaign with a lot of boat travel, but its not the primary story element. The group managed to stumble into a quest line that they WOULD NOT give up on despite being balanced for later in the game. through sheer perseverance and a few very lucky rolls talking to some dangerous wizards, they managed to get a ship that was enchanted to sail itself. So unless they have something to do with the passengers they might be carrying, I usually just have them roll daily travel checks on a roll table I made myself to see if anything interesting happens or if they got sped up or slowed down by the weather.

[@martinpat94]

So I think that this advice could also be used with the new Spelljammer stuff as it is just a nautical adventure in “space”. Also as for the 3D maneuvering I had an idea to have a separate grid off to the side that indicates the height of each creature, but I haven’t had the chance to use it so I’m not sure how effect of easy it would be to implement.

[@creterb2659]

I found this perfectly when I was looking for some tips on running a pirate campaign it is a mix of Greek and fantasy style similar to simbad in greek style but I wanted to have unique interactions than just "Oh siren attack" or "oh bad guy ship" Because of this I got ideas of using Charybdis a monster which is made to pull ships in to shred them to bits and as well having a mutiny that ends with the ship catching on fire

[@viniciuspessoa4973]

I like the idea of hardly give potions of breath under water, instead, give some equipment that allow them to breath under water, but it can be destroyed in a battle. Or give potions of breath under water of short duration. I think that this way I keep the idea that the players still are in a different environment

[@trioofone8911]

Would that "points of interest" thing be another name for the thing called a "point crawl"?

[@AvenueStudios]

Haha was literally talking last night about running a nautical campaign sometime soon! Good timing thank you! -Dan

[@Leniathan]

A video on your points of interest system would be nice 👍

[@jlogs9967]

With the whole fire spells underwater thing I love to flavor it as boiling water or steam. A fireball is a big orb of boiling water that scorches everything it touches

[@rebeccabielow3176]

My current campaigns play in ancient Greece so we are travelling both land and sea. My lvl 5 group just discovered a frozen island in the middle of summer and in the middle of the mediteranen. It´s a fun adventure that after working on it and playing with a different group now even ties in with the major story. But it can also just be a fun adventure to plug into any sea. Everything is frozen, the reason is a bheur hag that is holding the island hostage. You can add a lot of fun things into this premise :)

[@alexisartfeild2807]

Currently running a campaign where the 'world' map is an archipelago. The ocean travel bits are often just that, travel to the next POI in an effort to move forward the over arching plot. And planning travel is important as the rest of world does NOT remain static waiting for the PCs to show up. Each day, my players make a navigation check which may speed or slow their travel progress. And a single encounter roll, options include: monster battle (if spotted ahead of time a skill challenge to avoid available), weather event (good or bad), a chance at obtaining a consumable resource, other travelers, or something just plain Weird.

[@thegneech]

One cool side effect of nautical campaigns is that downtime is baked in. "It will take you ten days to get to Waterkeep. Get to crafting!"

[@squirrelking5203]

I'm currently playing in a nautical dnd campaign that has been really fun so far. I will say that after losing our ship for the second time to unfortunate circumstances we're all pretty much ready to turn in our sea legs for a life on land. First time it happened we were just super excited we survived. If we get out of this one we'll likely be reevaluating our occupation though.

[@dcast781227]

Came here after watching the trailer for the last voyage of the Demeter! So many ideas and I wanna make sure I run it really well!!

[@derekstein6193]

An idea for tracking height/depth of characters in combat: Take a cheap dowel and glue it vertically to a sturdy base. Cut out squares/rectangles from cereal boxes or the like. Glue those pieces of cardboard (inside surface facing you) to the side of clothespins. Cover those pieces of cardboard with masking tape (or any other with a slick surface) to make a wet-erase surface. You can now write with a wet-erase marker the names of PCs and creatures on those modified clothespins, including their height/depth. Clip them onto the dowel so that the labeled side faces everyone, making sure that those that are higher in altitude are higher on the dowel. This should give at a glance a visual means of comparing creature locations relative to each other. Maybe even clip all PCs and friendly npcs to one side, and enemies on the other to help keep track of friend and foe. For extra utility, paint one vertical side of the dowel with a few colored bands. That side can face players when you need to represent what floor/area of the ship every creature is on. Have the highest band represent the rigging/sails, the one below being the deck, the next being below deck, and the last being overboard. A bonus for this is that it should be cheap to make if you go to a dollar store for materials, or use some otherwise useless miscellane that is just sitting around being unused.

[@cheetor1987]

Our group use horses all of the time, and we keep on getting them killed. It was a milestone for us when we had no deaths of the equestrian sort after traveling to an area. One time we had a character Yoshie sacrifice his horse.

[@jamesg9840]

Random encounters just strung together, dude that’s my daily life.

[@jeanvelezroman852]

Just found this channel thanks to this video. It's definitely worth watching if you're building a nautical campaign or a campaign that has ocean elements to it. I'm going to be using a lot of your stuff😅 Thanks for this!

[@Ridliman]

The first pitfall is literally the plot of Star Trek TOS and TNG. About the horses thing you said, we have a Horse, only one, pulling our cart to bring us to all our adventures but that gracious creature never complains... mainly because it's a esqueleton horse we found in our first adventure. In fact, we are now very scared because in the last session we finally destroyed the very thing that was causing the zombie infestation in the zone and we are dreading about if the horse died too when we killed the final boss.

[@Darkestcatlol]

I’m running strahd and I started it with a group of well established adventures going to a calmer city to relax, I remember saying they were walking or on horse back when the road ended, nothing but trees, i narrate them going in as you can’t not go into berovia in curse of strahd and one player wanted to keep there horse, but I didn’t want to so I brushed it off and said that the group didn’t have horses. Very minor situations as no one really cared about keeping the horses. Also people start games with some establishment in the group, I can’t stress how bad it feels to play as a player and want to do a “you are my friends” but then get blocked by “we are strangers” for the first 3-10 sessions, I had a barbarian that had a murderer twist like “I’m a good guy now” but due to the barbarian and mystery characters everyone built this anti trust system that ruined the relationship I wanted to build. A lot of games don’t role play minute moments so if you start a game with a bit of relationships your players have more say on how they interact with each other. Rant over nice vid

[@israelmorales4249]

in 3.5 fire magic underwater can be "exchange" for a bubbling hot water, but you must succeed in an Arcana or concentration check to make the trick

[@schemage2210]

To be fair, that first pit trap (a campaign made of a string of random encounters), sounds exactly like my first years' worth of D&D where I played through Tomb of Annihilation. Sure, there was some sort of overall plot thread in the back of it all, but mostly it was just random encounters as we stumbled through Chult. I wouldn't say it was horrible (not entirely), but it is definitely worth noting that this can happen in land based campaigns as much as nautical ones.

[@ajdynon]

I have a campaign in the back of my mind inspired by Django Wexler's "Wells of Sorcery" series, starting with the PCs being imprisoned on a mysterious, self-sailing prison ship and told they'll be pardoned if they can figure out a way to control the ship and hand it over to the country that imprisoned them. (Of course, being PCs they're more likely to take control of the ship themselves...)

[@bakuiel1901]

Nice ideas for a nautical campaign, love the ocean in games. I also would love a detailed explanation of your point of interest travel system.

[@richardgesegnet5481]

Your sword coast campaign was a shining example of what to do with nautical adventures

[@liamjones8122]

loved this vid i am a DM And am planing a Nautical campaign and this gave my so maney good ides

[@simon1847]

Really awesome content! Some great ideas and really a great inspiration for naval campaign creation!

[@eliinthewolverinestate6729]

We usually have horses and a wagon or cart. Which the wagon and cart with fire suppression have been destroyed in random encounters. They have been stolen and even some horses too.

[@Birdman_LIVE]

Oh man! I’ve played in one of the games you described at the beginning. Oh look, another random sea monster! How fulfilling. So many of your tips would have remade the “campaign” if the DM had taken your advice.

[@twilightgardenspresentatio6384]

Man this one is gonna be on my rewatchers list

[@walkergamble4504]

The rules for naval combat in the 3.5 dnd book storm wrack is fairly straightforward and easy to convert

[@LordOz3]

I feel like a lot of the advice for nautical campaigns is also relevant to spelljamming style campaigns. If you don't have a way to give each player something to do in a ship battle, it's probably best to abstract it and get to the boarding action. I'm starting a voidjammer campaign (spelljammer with a few changes), and I'm looking forward to when my players encounter a derelict stuffed with hungry Dark-Sunesque halflings (I call them hannibals). So much for swabbing the decks, lads! To arms!

[@cadenceclearwater4340]

Diagonal movement is faster. That's why ninjas always run that way.

[@personx1646]

What’s crazy is the way expectations change. As a child I did not care about the role play or anything other than combat much. I loved seeing the minis and the battles, as I’ve aged I more prefer just the theater of the mind, but as a novice dm I’m trying to learn how to merge both together

[@personx1646]

Don’t get me wrong, a one shot pick up game that is all action can be awesome

[@IvanBarsch]

So I have a board game called Black Seas that I’m planning to implement for naval combat in my naval campaign. It’s fairly simple yet accurate and should translate fairly easily.

[@MarioReischer]

About that 3D battle. Why not use a blue water gridded map, pay the characters down sideways and now you can move up, down, left, right and have squares in all directions. :)

[@joeallen7981]

I'm running a pirate campaign and the rules in Salt Marshes suck! We started with the players being passengers and ship to ship combat happened in the background until someone wanted to take command of a cannon then I just let them shoot a few times but didn't change my plan. The characters got in the action when the pirates boarded our ship. Then they wanted to buy their own ship so I had to come up with ship prices and crew wages. But no they wanted to custom build their own ship and spend more money on making it faster. So I had to come up with basically slots where they could trade off things like speed for durability, or number of cannons for cargo space, etc. Then they wanted to do the crew stuff themselves so I had to come up with tasks and challenges like climb and seamanship checks to raise or lower a sail in two rounds so the ship can turn 90 degrees to get guns on the enemy before they shot a volley at our unprotected stern. Now I basically have an entire source book on nautical rules. At least I had fun learning a tone of stuff about the age of sail.

[@yaboi3710]

I pick horses all the time, usually along side a cart too so i can carry stuff around. Feels more immersive

[@gongyooho7312]

i completely built an entire world and premise for my players to explore and story that changes the surrounds and town. it was set in saltmarsh and i made it a sand box but my party opted for random encounter after random encounter swords for hire route lol

[@rjmichael01]

We have electrical damage like lightning do aoe damage with submerged and for height on the flying or swimming we use the pizza tables because they stack nice and fit on the maps well each table we use as 10’ elevation

[@valeri0n38]

A minor gripe... It's not Boat-SWAIN. It's Bo'sun. As a Boatswain's Mate in the Navy for 20 years it kinda, sorta grates my nerves. But, I also understand because you might not have had any experience with that.

[@BenjaminDaniello]

Hey DM Lair, thanks for this video, im currently making my own homebrew campaign and this is perfect for my prep 😁❤️😊

[@ajdynon]

That Star Trek game you described sounds like “Star Fleet Battles”.

[@Raycheetah]

SFB was a war game, not an RPG (though, as in so many cases, Task Force Games also released an SFB universe RPG). =^[.]^=

[@ajdynon]

@@Raycheetah True, but from what was said it sounded like the game wasn’t necessarily an RPG. OTOH, from what I know some of the Star Trek RPGs have been pretty complex too. (Edit: In fact, now that I think of it, I vaguely recall hearing that Prime Directive was set in the SFB Universe. Never played it, so I could be wrong though)

[@fred_derf]

2:27 That's a pretty cool looking ship, where's it from?

[@ericfrechette5569]

Considering the 3D stuff, a very easy way to represent the verticality (either in the air or in water) is using that fantastic d12 almost no player ever use (because so few weapons/spells actually use it) and place it beside the mini with its number having a value of x5 foot. Most situations are very unlikely to go beyond 60'.

[@KermodeBear]

A fireball may not have as much of a fiery effect, but water does not compress very well. The shockwave from the explosion might be nasty.

[@ghuth1948]

Loved this

[@chriskaschafsky5846]

I use a fudge dice for the depth of the tokens. A plus is above, a minus is under, blank is 0. I got a pack of 12 of them at a con aa a door gift.

[@rainey82]

Alternatives to combat during travel would be great!

[@Seraphina-Rose]

I love peppering non-combat encounter's into my game. I'm going to have my group seek out an NPC marid in his coral fortress, the father of our water genasi, a tie-in to her backstory, who has info they'll need. I'm also going to have them encounter a patrol of merfolk on giant seahorses and learn more about the sahuagin threat. And to sneak some dragon in, they're going to meet a bronze dragon who's bored and wants to swap stories and be entertained.