Dungeon Master: Ships and Ship Combat

Campaigns based around travel and ships can be a great experience. From pirates to epic quests against horrors from the depths of the ocean, there are many ways to get good experiences out of such a setup. However, given that I've been involved in 2 campaigns with this setup, there was one major issue I noticed: locations for battles were often the same. After all, you are on a ship. If you get attacked you will be fighting on a ship. How can we make new and interesting locations then? Well, that's what I hope to explore here now. If you have your suggestions, I would love to hear them.

One Ship

One of the big issues that can occur is a stale combat environment. If the players have only one ship for the entire length of the campaign and the enemies always come to them, a lot of combat will occur on the same deck plan. The solution seems incredibly simple and obvious: don't always attack the players and have them attack others too. Pirates don't only get attacked, they also attack. If your game doesn't have your players as pirates, it may not be as easy. They'll have an item and it will be the bad guys attacking them as they try to escape on their ship. Having this occur a few times is fine. However, I've been witness to situations where it happened again, and again, and yet again.

Get Them Off the Ship

Don't want to have fight after fight on the same ship deck? Well, the easy way around this issue is to make sure to give players motivations and reasons to leave the ship. By doing so the scenery for fights changes. The problem here is that it can result in the ship emphasis being nothing more than window dressing or a method of travel to the real adventure. This point is not exactly clear since the special concerns that accompany ship use such as their ability to reach places nothing else short of flying can, maintenance, enhanced transportation capability and more make them have their own advantages. Window dressing can also be very important.

Damage and Effects

There are many things that can happen to a ship to change it for a combat encounter. Damage can leave debris that blocks off areas of the deck, forces areas to be difficult terrain, open up holes that allow creatures to fall to lower decks, and fire that prevents passage as well as causes damage. Two ships can ram each other and be bound into one. Some bigger ships can also have multiple decks, resulting in new opportunities for fights. Ships can also be sinking, or be shaken by rough seas.

Different Ships

Players don't always have to be stuck with one ship. They can trade up as the campaign moves on to get better and better ships. This is a bit of a double edged sword though. Players can get attached to one ship or prefer to get attached to one ship. In this way it becomes almost a character or important place for the campaign.

Emplacements and Ordnance

Cannons, ballistae, catapults (can throw alchemist's fire, acid, necklaces of fireball, and many other things), flamethrowers and many more options become open when on a ship. The size and strength of a ship allows you to carry weapons that would be far too big otherwise. Crates of alchemist's fire can burst into flames as a result of a well placed fireball spell and threaten to sink a ship. There's a lot to play with when you can lug literal tons of stuff.