The Seafarer’s Manual
Sleek Schooner, by Mark Winters © Wizards of the Coast
I like big boats and I cannot lie.
The Seafarer's Manual is a brand-new, streamlined set of rules for naval combat and adventures at sea.
This has been a long time coming. The initial seed for it was in a private rewrite I did of the Saltmarsh ship rules, when that book came out 5 years ago. I've gotten a lot better at design since then, and have tested various tweaks, and the Seafarer's Manual now aims to be the proper sort of supplement: enough new mechanics and crunch to hook you in, but not so much that you're buried under detail. Within, you'll find
Rules for naval combat and seafaring adventures!
Combat: It works basically like regular 5E, but on a hex grid, with ungainly movement, and firing arcs.
Attacks: a ship makes a single attack roll for all its guns, but does damage for all its guns at once. Bring lots of dice.
Officers: PCs can all take officer roles, choosing from a menu of combat and travel actions every turn.
This is an early draft! You can look at the last page for a list of stuff that's slated to add to it. Right now it's fairly barebones, but playtestable, and absolutely will work for your games. It'll get more stuff, with an aim to be a full campaign supplement. And there'll be a fair bit of content exclusive to my Kickstarter, but nothing core - that'll all be add-on material.
I'm going to be putting this through a lot of playtesting this year, and intend to add more - again, you can find a whole laundry list at the end of the doc of what's planned. But your feedback (and especially your playtests) would be a giant help! The Seafarer's Manual is also planned to be a key part of my Kickstarter later this year, so it's going to see a lot of refinement.
As always, you can join us in discord to discuss!
