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I Don’t know how much this ability is but I’d say that it’s about 10 points;
Once per turn, One ship within S of this ship cannot use it’s abilities this turn.
This ship gains that ship’s abilities for this turn.That sounds quite powerful. Are the opposing ship’s abilities cancelled for the user’s turn only, or for the whole round that would include the enemy ship’s turn?
Looking for Criticism on the fallowing ship type ideas.
Cog, a single masted square-rigged river-merchant boat with a quartercastle (as jib galleon). Cogs will have below average speed (S to 2S), and mostly short range average accuracy guns. Cogs will have higher Cargo Capacity for ships of their size. They will also come with the “Cog” ship type ability which will be as follows.
Cog: Once, during it’s turn, any friendly ship within S of this ship may transfer any amount of gold, treasure, and/or crew from itself and/or this ship to the other as a free action.
I feel this will make the otherwise comparatively slow and underwhelming Cog somewhat useful to gold-runner as a kind of “pass the baton” ship that can resupply other ships. With proper set up they could form a decent chain of ships to transfer gold quickly across great distances. But otherwise the ships are slow and have low defensive abilities making them sitting ducks especially if caught out in the open laden with stuff.
Caravel, a lanteen sailed double or triple masted ship (2 masted ships have 2 lanteen sails like galleys, three masted ships have a square rigged mast at the foremast). Fast on average, more so than other ships of their size (S+L or 2L standard), but possess shorter range guns with lower accuracy. Relatively low cargo space over all. Caravels were known for their ability to sail into the wind, so the Caravel ship type ability would be somewhat similar to windcatcher and schooner.
Caravel: Once during this ships turn, after any of it’s movement segments, this ship may perform a stern turn as an additional free movement segment. If this ships cargo hold is full, she cannot perform a stern turn.
I feel this will make the 2 and 3 masted ships good at quick maneuvering and allow them to access and explore islands faster as well as run small amounts of gold.
Carracks. Carracks are notable for being 3 or 4 masted ships with the first two or three masts being square rigged while the mizzenmast was always lanteen rigged. They have a mix of guns. They have above average cargo capacity for their size and below average speed. They would also have the Carrack ship ability.
Carrack: If this ships cargo hold is full, her base move is increased by S.
I’m looking for criticism on these ship types and maybe better ideas for what their ship abilities might be if they have any.
Sorry of the long post.
Sorry of the long post.
Don’t be.
These are interesting ideas. I think the word you’re looking for is “lateen” sail. Unless lanteen is an alternate spelling I’m not aware of.
The only improvements I would suggest are to the wording of the abilities. It’s best to be as concise and clear as possible, while sticking to what Wizkids wrote so people can easily think about and identify the abilities. For example:
Cog: “Once per turn this ship may explore a friendly ship within S of her as a free action.” (unless you need a clause about no equipment transfers)
Carrack: “When this ship reaches her cargo limit, she gets +S to her base move.”
You’re right it was lateen, my bad.
The Cogs general idea was to be kind of a pass the baton support ship, so my intended purpose of the Cogs ability was to allow nearby ships to “explore”, does this ound better, or is it maybe a bit off the mark.
Cog: Once per turn, a friendly ship within S of this ship may explore her as a free action. (I forgot equipment was a thing)
I also must ask how a ship is priced point wise prior to having any extraneous effects. Obviously Cog, Caravel, and Carrack will likely have point cost modifiers (assuming Schooner, Junk, Galley and the like have such modifiers as well) but what defines a ships base point cost. El Picador is a good example of a ship with no ability text, It’s a two masted ship with a point value of 5 I believe.
Cog: Once per turn, a friendly ship within S of this ship may explore her as a free action. (I forgot equipment was a thing)
This may work, but the free action coming from outside the ship makes it prone to exploitation. Example: Is the once per turn for each friendly ship exploring this ship? Or once per turn that ONE friendly ship can explore the ship? I assume you mean the latter, but when you base effects from outside of the game piece with the actual ability, you may invite additional issues.
I also must ask how a ship is priced point wise prior to having any extraneous effects.
I don’t have any formulas Wizkids used, and I’ve never seen any official ones.
I had actually initially meant the former. which was for the sake of the following formula:
Ship A: moves within range of the cog on it’s turn and then uses a free action to unload cargo onto the cog.
Ship B (the Cog): moves it’s speed away from Ship A towards Ship C.
Ship C: uses it’s free action to load cargo from the cog (Ship B) and then uses it’s action to move away from the cog.
This was my initial idea behind the Cog ability, though I’m open to criticism and discussion over whether or not this is a good idea. You suggestion of making it be the cogs action instead only really hinders it by forcing the cog to sit for 1 turn with whatever cargo it gathered, making it fairly vulnerable for a 1 masted ship with no inherent defensive qualities, but I see that unhindered access to this ability could make them significantly valuable if the proper set up was achieved.
This was my initial idea behind the Cog ability, though I’m open to criticism and discussion over whether or not this is a good idea. You suggestion of making it be the cogs action instead only really hinders it by forcing the cog to sit for 1 turn with whatever cargo it gathered, making it fairly vulnerable for a 1 masted ship with no inherent defensive qualities, but I see that unhindered access to this ability could make them significantly valuable if the proper set up was achieved.
In that case, as a player I would want to try out a “cog chain” similar to the American native canoes and transport a lot of cargo over a big distance without actually needing a lot of ships to do so. I’m not saying it’s OP (especially without having seen a custom ship with the ability yet), but I think the wording could be more clear. Woelf is the master of that….
“Friendly ships within S of this ship can explore this ship as a free action, once per turn each.” This is probably not optimal, but the best I can come up with right now.
cool, given the cog ability as discussed what would it’s point cost be if applied to a ship do you think, the same goes for Caravel and Carrack.
given the cog ability as discussed what would it’s point cost be if applied to a ship do you think
I think I/we would need to see a ship to help determine that. However, if this is on a slow one mast ship I’d say that ship (barring other abilities) should be no more than 11-12 points.
Given the above, and assuming it has the Cog keyword, I’d say that’s a 9-10 point ship, but could possibly be less, given some of the ships the Pirates got such as the Paradox.
Would these new keyword/ship types be specific to a new faction, like the Dutch, Portuguese, or some other faction? If they are, you could make that one of their “defining features” getting SLIGHT discounts on point costs, much like the pirates do.
Given the above, and assuming it has the Cog keyword, I’d say that’s a 9-10 point ship
Agreed. May seem high at first but cargo is very valuable and the Cog ability is quite good.
I feel that the Cog, Carrack, Caravel would likely be defining features of the Portuguese who used them most often but that a small number would find their way into other factions, kind of like how the draw of the Mercenaries was the Submarines, and the Jade Rebellion had the Junks but over time other factions had small quantities of those ship types.
Historical Custom of the Day #430
HMS Prince
Type: Ship
Faction Affiliation: English
Rarity: U
Point Value: 16
Number of Masts: 5
Cargo Space: 4
Base Move: L
Cannons: 2S-3L-2L-3L-2S
Ability: This ship gets +1 to her cannon rolls against French and Dutch ships.
Link: John Cox, John Narborough, Cloudesley ShovellYou can find my custom sets in the Customs Database.
I feel maybe the cog ability is perhaps a bit powerful, and I understand you can explore derelict ships, which I assume means you need to have a ship touching the derelict ship first. What if instead of a friendly ship within S being able to explore it’s a friendly ship touching the cog.
Hmmmm. If the ships are touching already, then they wouldn’t need the keyword, as they could just explore one another and use the transfer rules to move cargo around. I like the idea of the Cog not requiring contact as previously mentioned, but it could also be exploited that way. Perhaps this could work as the Cog ability:
Once per turn, one friendly ship within S of this ship may explore this ship.
It seems to preserve what you were going for originally, and will still be quite useful.
I’ve rethought the Carrack ability, seeing as Carracks weren’t inherently faster than other ships I feel that the following preserves their nature as cargo and exploration ships.
Carrack: If this ship loads the last treasure from an island, she may move S as a free action.
Addendum: Your most recent idea for the cog ability mirrors ben’s and the more I think about it I like it far more than unlimited access to the cog.
Interesting, I almost mistook that as the existing ability to move S after loading treasure. This could be even more interesting if you changed treasure to cargo, and didn’t specify that it had to be the last one from an island.
Would’t that incentivize them to be used as loot-n-scoot gold runners. The draw of a carrack is it’s larger cargo capacity in comparison to other 3 masted ships, so I was trying to create a ship ability that capitalized on the ships history of cargo hauling without making an entire archetype of gold runners.I understand the comment better after thinking about it. Sorry about that.
After doing some ship research I’ve finalized the ideas with the following (barring additional criticism)
Cog: Once per turn, one friendly ship within S of this ship may explore this ship as a free action. (This occurs on the cogs turn)
Caravel: When given a move action, this ship can rotate on her stern (the rear of the ship) in any direction as an additional, final movement segment. This ship benefits from opposing Trade Currents as though they were friendly.
Carrack: This ship cannot be rammed or pinned by a 1 or 2 masted ship. This ship has +1 to it’s cannon rolls against 1 and 2 masted ships within S of her.
Drua [Tongan double-hulled canoe]: This ship benefits from opposing Trade currents as though they were friendly.
Cog: Once per turn, one friendly ship within S of this ship may explore this ship. (This occurs on the cogs turn)
Is this meant to include “as a free action” in the text? As written it costs a normal, full action, so it’s barely doing anything at all.
This one is sort of like a gold runner but…
Kinda Not. 😉
Name: HMS Letdown
Type: Ship
Faction Affiliation: English
Rarity: R
Point Value: 4
Number of Masts: 1
Cargo Space: 0
Base Move: L+L+L
Cannons: 6S
Ability: Explorer. Any friendly ships within L of this ship get -2 to all of their cannon rolls,
Barbary Corsair crew may use their abilities on this ship, Barbary Corsair crew take up no cargo space on this ship.
Flavor Text: Found shipwrecked on the barrier reef in Australia, The “Letdown” was christened by Ismail after he had lost a whole load of spices in a freak Rip-tide accident ten minutes after leaving port.
@ Ocho, that’s a fun looking ship, I like it’s speed. Even if it can’t shoot or carry cargo.
@ Woelf, yes, and that has been rectified.
Was looking up the username Alanqsmithee after posting a custom by Riz that the former did flavor text for, and what do you know – a flickr account with customs! 😀 It looks like Pirates of the Tolling Depths, which was at least partially posted on Miniature Trading. It’s been a number of years since I’ve seen these customs….
Are there any other concerns or criticisms on the ship types I presented in post #11796. Any issues to discuss with the Cog, Caravel, Carrack, or Drua.
If not I’d like to know their possible point costs before I start working on the ship manifest.
Are there any other concerns or criticisms on the ship types I presented in post #11796. Any issues to discuss with the Cog, Caravel, Carrack, or Drua.
For Carrack, I would recommend “gets” +1 to its cannon rolls instead of “has”, to be consistent with existing abilities.
It would be interesting to see the design of a drua in the game.
If not I’d like to know their possible point costs before I start working on the ship manifest.
I would put Cog and Drua at 1 point each. Caravel at 1 or 2. Carrack seems the most consequential of them and I would probably want to playtest that one starting at 4 points.
@Ben , I think you’ll love these:
Necromancer
Rarity: LE
Faction Affiliation: Cursed
Link: El Fantasma
Number Of Masts: 5
Point Cost: 27
Cargo: 6
Base Move: S
Cannons: 4S-2L-2L-2L-2L
Abilities: Tall Ship, Ghost Ship, Broadsides Attack. Whenever any crew would be eliminated roll a d6; On a result of 6, Assign the crew to this ship. It’s nationality changes to match the nationality of this ship and it becomes linked to this ship. This ship’s crew cannot be eliminated unless she sinks. Once per turn, This ship may give +S to the base move of any Sea Monster in this ship’s fleet.
Tall Ship Keyword: As Long as this ship has all of her masts she gets +L to her Base Move
El Fantasma
Rarity: LE
Faction Affiliation: Cursed
Link: Necromancer
Point Cost: 11
Abilities: Loyal: Cursed, Eternal, Captain, Fear. If this ship succeeds at a boarding party, She may eliminate all of the other ship’s crew.
@Ochobrazo2298: I do like those, I also have a Necromancer in my Epic Seas set. 🙂
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