Alternate Boarding Rules
This is an alternate way to conduct boardings which I’ve seen online as a house rule: It makes boardings more like real life and way more powerful, but potentially unbalanced:
If a boarding is declared, each player rolls a d6 for every mast and crew on their ship. The players compare their highest rolls, and the loser eliminates one mast or crew, and then eliminates a die. If the players tied for the highest roll, compare their next highest. Nothing happens if every die is the same. When a ship runs out of dice (so has no crew or masts remaining) it is captured.
– Ships/Crew that add +1 to boarding rolls add an extra die instead.
– I’m not sure what to do with Inquisitor-type cards that eliminate all crew on a successful boarding. The doc I read didn’t offer any ideas. I think perhaps you could say they eliminate all crew with a successful roll, instead of just one at a time, but that’s really strong. I do like it though…
Example:
The Zephyr, carrying Captain Jack Hawkins and an Oarsman, rams El Leon, carrying an explorer.
The ram does no damage due to Leon’s ability. The Zephyr shoots and misses. Hawkins’s ability eliminates the explorer on El Leon immediately, and then the pirate player declares a boarding.
Zephyr begins with 4 dice, one for each crew, one for its single mast, one for its ability.
El Leon begins with 3, one for each mast. It would have begun with 4 had the explorer not died.
The Zephyr rolls 6, 3, 1, 1
El Leon rolls 4, 3, 3
Zephyr wins, El Leon doesn’t have any crew to eliminate so must eliminate a mast.
Round 2:
Zephyr: 4, 4, 2, 1
El Leon: 5, 3
Zephyr obviously doesn’t want to eliminate a mast, so the oarsman is sacrificed.
Round 3:
Zephyr: 4, 2, 2
Leon: 4, 1
Zephyr wins. A second mast is eliminated from Leon.
Final round:
Zephyr: 6, 4, 3
Leon: 5
The final mast is eliminated from Leon, the Zephyr captures it.
EDIT- This wasn’t in the doc I read but spitballing some possible restrictions on here:
– Only one boarding roll can occur per turn
– A ship which is being boarded can not move or shoot. The attacking ship may not shoot, but can move away (and call off the boarding) if they are not pinned.