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With Towing Option #1 (on page 10), can you initiate the tow, then have the towed ship explore the towing ship before any move segments are used? In my most recent game I assumed you could not because you have to complete the move action that started the tow in the first place.
Your assumption was correct. Taking the derelict under tow occurs as part of the move action, so you have to complete that before either ship can explore the other.
So the MKL wording is the official, correct wording?
You can consider it the same level of official-ness as the post-WK version of the Pirate Code, because it does include small tweaks and wording clarifications throughout to better match with the PC.
They’re technically not “official-official” because they were never published by WK, but they reflect what they would have (or should have) been, had the game continued longer.
This would also apply to Ex-Pat crew that do have HI-Raiding as an ability, such as Yeshaji Angria, correct?
Yes! He’s actually the main one it affects, because Le Jongleur is terrible and there’s no reason to use it aside from proving that you can.
I was 99% sure there was a crew that had the combo, but couldn’t recall the name offhand, and somehow missed him when skimming through the master spreadsheet.
In the Master Keyword List, Mercenary is listed as: “This ship cannot dock at its own home island, and must begin the game S away from its home island.”
In the scans of MI and SS rules, it is listed differently, especially that it cannot dock at any home island. Which one is correct, and when did Wizkids’ intent change if the MKL version is correct?
Thanks!
That slight change in wording really doesn’t really matter for general use, because you already can’t dock at opposing home islands.
What the subtle difference in the MKL does is un-break Le Jongleur (MI-209), which technically wouldn’t be able to use its built-in HI-Raider ability at all if you took them exactly as WK had them written. A side effect is that also allows you to put an Ex-Pat on some other ship with that ability and still use it, but that’s minor to the point of being almost irrelevant.
My question is; does Runes of Odin technically sink a ship, or is something else happening?
As written, Runes of Odin skips the “sinking” part and completely removes the ship plus anything else on it. It will not trigger Eternal, and will not split treasure in a two-player game.
Don’t mess with the Allfather.
How would the wording need to change to allow a mortar attack to target something within S of the ship?
Shifting the text around a little would do it.
Remove the “cannot shoot within S” line from the first paragraph, then add it as a modifier to the “normal” shoot action in the second section.
When an —keyword— is given a shoot action you may choose whether that action is a normal shoot action or a mortar attack.
If you choose a normal shoot action, this ship cannot shoot at ships within S. If you choose a mortar attack, [description goes here].
I don’t really like it being called “normal” or even “standard” when there’s a significant modifier added on immediately, but I think it gets the intent across fairly well. The alternative would be to go into much more detail about firing each/all cannons “using the standard rules, but…”
I was actually going to ask you that, though for a different reason. I tacked on the Broadsides Attack “no other abilities” line to the very end. I’m not certain if that would “overrule” so to speak the S range requirement.
The “no other abilities” text wouldn’t help in that case, for the same reason you can’t use BA against anything with the “Ships within S cannot shoot this ship” ability. If you don’t have a legal shot in the first place, you can’t apply any shooting abilities to it.
The way you have the keyword written above, I would assume the minimum range of S would still apply to the mortar attack.
I intend for the ability to be part of a new keyword for future custom ships. If copying is such a concern, would adding text into the keyword that specifically prevent the keyword from being copied work? I believe that you can pick and choose what abilities to copy if a target has more than one, but you cannot cherry pick a keyword, correct?
You can pick and choose between separate/individual abilities, but copying a keyword is all-or-nothing, so if this ability is tucked within one, especially one with some negative aspects to it like this, copying becomes much less of a concern.
If this is going to be a unique (physical) ship type, you could indirectly prevent copying by having the keyword refer repeatedly to that ship type, which would prevent it from working on other types of ships, although a simple line saying “This keyword cannot be copied.” would work just as well and would be more universal.
The rest of the keyword as it stands now, with an updated text:
—keyword—
This ship’s action limit is increased to three; all additional actions must still be generated normally by other abilities. This ship cannot shoot at ships within S of her. As part of a repair action this ship may be given a move action. While this ship has all of her masts, she cannot be boarded; this ship can always board.When an —keyword— is given a shoot action you may choose whether that action is a normal shoot action or a mortar attack (it cannot perform both with a single action). A mortar attack allows the —keyword— to attack any one target (including submerged ships) within L+L of its hull. Roll a d6; on a roll of 3 or higher the mortar attack is successful and it eliminates up to two masts on the target, and none of the crew or ship abilities may be used on the target’s next turn. No other abilities can be applied to a mortar attack.
Not being able to shoot within S kills a lot of the copying desire for this one, but not completely, and the bonus mortar attack offsets that somewhat (at least, if only requires the keyword and isn’t ship-type-dependent).
The repair-move part is a little ambiguous. Is that meant to be a free move after repairing, or is it intended to be a full action that counts toward the increased action limit? If it’s meant to be a free move, you should use the exact same wording as the Reverse Captain so it’s clear what else works with it (specifically, not a Captain). If it’s meant to be a full move action, consider making the repair the free part instead, with it worded more like a standard Captain. You could add a provision allowing the repair before the movement, even if the ship is derelict.
Does the mortar attack still obey the keyword’s base minimum range of S, or is it exempt from that because it’s specifically referred to as different from a regular shoot action?
Thematically, this keyword seems to be all over the place. Aside from the large mortar cannon, which is great (and more interesting than Bombardier), what specifically are you going for with the rest of it? Are there thematic/historical justifications for the increased action limit, the repairs while moving, or the boarding protection?
If such an ability were to exist, how would it need to be worded?
“This ship may be given up to three actions in a single turn.”
Would the above satisfy the clearly and specifically stated part? Would this be an absurdly OP custom ability?
That wording would probably work; the intent is clear, at least. Specifically saying “three” means there’s no debate about combining that with some other action generator to get even more.
But, like Ben said, copiers are a huge issue with something like that, even if you made the ability itself really expensive and/or put it on a mediocre ship. Not requiring anything extra to gain the actions is problematic too, and would drive the cost up significantly more.
At the very least, an ability like that would need to have Limit permanently attached to it so a player couldn’t easily abuse it within a single fleet. Multiplayer and especially anything with team play would still have potential issues.
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ADDED: If the intent was just to raise the action limit by 1 without actually generating those actions it gets a little more interesting, but the wording as-is wouldn’t work because that implies it’s also giving the ship those actions.
Something like this instead: “This ship’s action limit is increased to three; all additional actions must still be generated normally by other abilities.”
Limit would still be a good idea either way.
It looks like a standard canned response that doesn’t commit to anything in either direction, but it is at least nice that they responded.
This confuses me a bit. I’m pretty sure there are some ship types (especially 1 masted sloops) that could be pulled from out of the kraken’s grasp without touching any part of it other than the kraken’s base. Is touching the base enough to cause the ship to be immediately “stuck” again? I also figured it would work because in the Code it talks about how outside forces moving a ship can apply even if the target is pinned or entangled.
The Kraken’s ability to surround other ships breaks more rules than most abilities, which also messes with a lot of other interactions. The biggest rule break is that it’s the only thing in the game that allows two ships to occupy the same space at the same time, and the ability is needed to both maintain that rule break and to resolve it.
The mover ability of Tsuro (and similar) doesn’t work because it can’t push one ship through another, even if there would be enough physical space at the end of the L-distance to place the target ship. The Kraken’s base does count as part of the Kraken even though it mostly only shows water, and any outside force the tried to move the surrounded should would have to move the surrounded ship through that base, so the ship has nowhere to go.
(Cancelling Kraken creates yet another weird exception; technically you’d be sitting on an illegal situation while it’s inactive, but it would break the game to just instantly destroy the ship and/or the kraken, so the solution is to allow the surrounded ship to move out normally. If it does move, it must exit entirely or it would automatically become surrounded again as soon as the keyword reactivated. You could use Tsuro’s ability during that time instead, but only if the ship can be moved entirely outside of the kraken’s base.)
Entangled doesn’t prevent the use of outside movers because the Sargasso Seas don’t automatically prevent things from passing through; the effect is what (maybe) does that, not the terrain piece itself.
Related questions from Personofsecrets at the discord server:
How might the Scorpion and Switchblade ships interact with L move?
Scorpion doesn’t prevent outside movers because it still follows the standard rules for pinning, which the movers can break. The blade simply changes how the pinning occurs in the first place.
Swithblades don’t interact with outside movers in any meaningful way, because you have to give it a move action use the blades. They don’t trigger at all if something else moves the ship.
Does this also mean that L moving always requires at least one path that isn’t blocked by another ship?
In short, yes. It’s essentially the same situation that occurs when an iceberg moves. If it can’t go the full distance without passing through something, you push it as far as it can go and then stop. You’re not forced to pick a direction that allows for the full L-distance, and technically you’re not forced to move the full L even if the path is entirely clear, similar to how segments can always be shorted as desired while taking a move action.
Would Jonah override a Link then?
Pirate Code, Ability Conflict Heirarchy, pg 15
When an ability and a rule conflict the ability always
takes precedence regardless of the terms used, unless specifically stated otherwise.The above is leading me to believe that he (and others with that ability) would override a Link. For example, Jonah is on the Golden Medusa (RV003) with her Linked crew, Lady Baptiste (RV018). Does the Link not function properly or would Baptiste still link, providing a cargo space that she then fills, per link rules and the ability of Jonah?
How would a crew linking situation be handled with Jonah, say Fidel and Gaspar Zuan on the same ship with Jonah. Would they still effectively take up one cargo space, or would Jonah force them to both take up a cargo space?
There’s actually no interaction at all between Jonah’s ability and links, because links ADD space to a ship instead of making crew take up less.
A crew adding a space and then immediately using it gives the same effective result as a crew not taking up space ( = more crew on the ship), but in terms of game mechanisms it completely changes how they interact with other effects.
Jonah will block the “takes up no space” part of abilities like Oarsman, Master Bianco, Treasure Ship, and Akua Lapu, but completely ignores links like Lady B or Fidel+Gaspar.
If a kraken is surrounding a ship and is moved L by Tsuro, does the surrounded ship move with it or does it break the surround?
It’s a weird situation, because both the Kraken and the surrounded ship are basically locked in contact with each other from all directions. So while you can technically target either of them independently with that ability, neither can actually be moved without making contact (again) with the other.
In other words, Tsuro’s ability can’t do anything to the kraken or the surrounded ship.
Links are rules, not abilities, correct?
Correct, at least the normal ones printed on the cards separate from ability text; they could technically be overridden by abilities. (Nothing in the official game does that, but maybe customs could.)
The small handful of crew who have links provided by an ability count the same as any other ability, so they could be cancelled or copied.
Are the choices on when the additional 5 points from 0LR+5 crew determined in the same order as the player turn order? Just want to make sure I get the order right. Ex: Player 1 places all crew, then adds their +5 (which may include events or equipment). Player 2 places all crew, then their +5 choices. Then both players place any equipment (?). Or does Player 1 get to see the layout of Player 2’s face down crew choices before they decide their +5 choices?
The precise timing has never really been defined, but the way I’ve always assumed it to work was that all players built and placed their standard fleets first, then any players with one of those +5 crew would get an extra phase of sorts where they add up to 5 more points of stuff. The idea was that you could see what ships/nationalities the other players were using and how many crew, etc. they had before making your choice on the extras.
Considering that it’s usually going to be just crew being added and they generally aren’t getting revealed immediately, all players with a +5 can usually make their choices simultaneously without it really mattering too much. However, if it is an issue somehow, the choice and placement of the extras should follow the same player order established for initial fleet placement.
If a ship with the S-Exploring ability is L away from an island and has a base move of L remaining, can it move to dock with the island, using the S-Explore during the move segment and then taking advantage to explore the island as soon as it docks?
You have to use that ability either before or after a segment, not in the middle of one. In this case, the ship could dock and then use the ability, but because it docked first, it wouldn’t get to explore for free.
If a hoist loads the Trees UT, can it remain onboard? Should it say “must remain face-down”? As is, it seems like a ship (even if not a hoist) could load it (face up I suppose), and then use it in the middle of battle to spring back to life as a free action.
The “may” gives the option to either leave it on the island facedown, or reveal it and apply the effect immediately. If you loaded it with a Hoist (or even Intermediario), you’d still have the option to put it back on the island, but otherwise you’d have to reveal it. If the ship that got it was undamaged, the Trees would simply remove themselves from the game.
There’s no option to load it without revealing it.
Radix59 had a question from the Discord server:
Captain Charles Richard is worded slightly differently than Jonah, Robinson, and Princess Arii. They all state that crew always take up cargo spaces, while Richards states that they still take up cargo space – without the always. Since this was printed in Savage Shores, after the rest of the others, I would expect that this wording would be deliberately different – thereby allowing crew that don’t take up cargo space to still function aboard the ship. The “still” to me implies that the crew cargo interactions would function normally as if Richards was not aboard. Would this be an accurate way to interpret this?
I have no idea why the wording on that one was changed (and honestly had never even noticed), but it’s meant to be the exact same effect, so treat it the same as all of the others that came before.
I can’t recall if any other abilities use the word “still” in the same way, but for this one at least, it should count at the same level as “always”.
1. Was not using the “reveal treasure at HI’s” intended to be official guidance for 1v1 standard? I generally agree, I just want to make sure I play things right when I call a game “competitive standard”/no house rules/etc, for 1v1 games. Do you know if Wizkids’ intent was to use the multiplayer rules for this as well, and it only made it into the Start Here rules because it might help brand new players understand things?
I think it was intended as the standard, at least for two-players, so that’s what you should use if you want to stick to the technically-pure-original-official rules. It obviously breaks if you add more players, and the official (via PC) multiplayer rules work better for two-player as well, so I don’t think too many players would complain if you just used that as the standard for all player counts.
2. Am I correct in saying that the “starting gold value” is always 30? What if a player has 22 gold on their HI but only 12 of it came from the original 30 – does that trigger the “more than half the starting gold” endgame condition in a 2 player game? (Code makes me think no to the second, just want to confirm)
If you’re going with a standard setup, with both players contributing coins with a printed sum of 15, it’ll be 30. The first player to hit 16+ on their home island would win that game, regardless of where the gold came from or how much extra was left elsewhere in play.
If you change the starting total, the “more than half” value adjusts along with it.
3. An island contains Blood Money, Pandora’s Box, and Jailhouse Dog. Must you load Jailhouse Dog in order to use it (therefore not being able to interrupt and cancel the Pandora’s Box), or can you use it immediately because it’s already revealed per Blood Money?
Jailhouse Dog would have to wait, because it loads face down, making it optional to load (even if it is somehow already face up). Blood Money and Pandora’s Box will both have to be fully resolved before you have the option to take the Dog.
You could only use it in this scenario if it was already on your ship prior to finding the other two.
4. Can you prevent a ram by shooting off a mast that was rammed? (ex: ramming the bowsprit of another ship and then accidentally shooting it away)
This relates directly to the rule about pinning and mast removal/repair. As long as the ships made contact during the movement portion, the contact/ram is still considered to have occurred even if the pieces making the physical contact get removed before you fully resolve it. (The Switchblade ability also relies on this.)
(Misread the question initially)
I’ll stand by the old capture-captains like Aruj Barbarossa, and especially Bonny Peel with the Pirate price discount.
They’re expensive to use, require the right ship and setup, and they force you to get up close and personal with the enemy, but when they hit, it’s a game-changer. Not only can they give you buckets of gold, but they also strip away some of your opponent’s best crew, who thought they were protected behind a meat shield of oarsmen and other cheap fodder. Even the unkillables aren’t safe.
My vote would be flotillas, though krakens might be rising to challenge that.
I think most players are well aware of how powerful flotillas can be, especially in deathmatch. You need the right ship to drag one around, but there are numerous good options in every nation that has them.
Krakens are a good call. They have the unfortunate combination of being hard to get and even harder to use, plus they require an expensive support crew (DJ) to really get the most out of them. Even then, they tend to be way too specialized; you’re spending an awful lot of points just to be able to tie up just one opposing ship for a turn or two, but when you do catch a ship that can’t deal with them, they’re in for a rough time.
Even with the potential to be cancelled, there’s not really a defined “front” or starting point for the tentacle placement, and all the slots are the exact same size, so the exact positions don’t matter. I’ll add a line saying that to my notes for the possible future update.
How much does the order of kraken tentacles matter when constructing them? Should it be clockwise from the bottom left corner, or having the middle cannons on the deckplate be the innermost tentacles?
The order doesn’t matter at all for those. You can place them wherever they fit.
Because they can only shoot something that’s surrounded, the target will always be within range of every tentacle, and removing specific ones won’t alter its lines of fire any any meaningful way.
Thanks for the clarification.
You’re welcome!
For Unique Treasures does the No Duplicates rule apply per player or for the treasure pool for the particular game? I.e. can you have multiple copies of a UT in the same game if different players bring them?
In general, the No-Duplicates rule is only applied on a per-player basis, so two different players could add the same UTs or use the same ships/crew/etc..
Normally you’d have no idea going into a game what the other players will be using in their fleets or what they’ll contribute to the treasure pool, so there’s no good or fair way to enforce that rule globally if two or more players wanted to use identical things, without switching to a full drafting format (or similar).
There are a few edge cases and nuances to the rule, but they’re relatively minor and mostly obvious (page 7 of the PC and the second post back on the very first page of this thread go into more detail).
If a ship with the “Two hits from the same shoot action are required to eliminate one of this ship’s masts.” ability is hit by something with “Once per turn when this ship hits an enemy ship, also eliminate one crew from that ship.” does it still eliminate a crew if it only scores one successful hit, so not causing a mast to be lost?
Likewise, would something like La Belle Etoile still cause a ship with “Two hits from the same shoot action are required to eliminate one of this ship’s masts.” to still lose something on every successful hit regardless of how many masts are actually eliminated?
Yes to both of these. Those abilities are triggered by hitting a ship, not eliminating a mast.
Exactly – Both of those abilities work in full, because hits and mast eliminations are separate things that may or may not trigger other effects depending on their specific wording.
If you also throw in the ability that eliminates two masts with a single hit, you end up with a sequence something like this:
First Hit – Eliminates a crew, but no mast damage.
Second Hit – Eliminates two masts.
Third Hit – No damage.
Fourth Hit – Eliminates two masts.
Fifth Hit – Etc. (alternating)
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A ship like Asesino de la Nave (or La Belle Etoile) will still destroy cargo with every single hit, even if only every second hit eliminates a mast on the target.
This ship sinks when her last mast is eliminated.
If that ability is cancelled, does the ship sink when the cancelling “resets”, or does it stay afloat as a derelict because at that point, the last mast has already been eliminated (and having it not be cancelled is not triggering the final mast to be eliminated again).
That ability applies only at the moment of mast elimination, so if that’s cancelled the ship remains in play (derelict) and will not sink when the cancellation wears off.
(It would be different if the wording was something like, “this ship sinks if it has no masts”.)
Did you ever find any stats on the actual size of that table? Judging from how it looks in comparison to the ships, it’s way too small to play a regulation game on it even after adding a few more islands. You’d need three more to make a 2×2 square just to get a large enough area.
If the Nautilus is decked out with the mercenary keyword in all of her glory, gets sunk while she was carrying the Neptune’s Figurehead UT, does she get placed at her home island fully repaired like the UT States, or would she not because of the mercenary keyword.
Mercenary’s docking restriction prevents Neptune’s Figurehead from working, so the ship just sinks and doesn’t come back.
The only way to potentially save it would be to cancel the Mercenary keyword during the same turn, before it sinks. In that case it would return home like a normal ship, but then would immediately undock at the end of the turn when the cancellation wore off.
This ability is intended to indicate that the ship is able to fire a sort of early/primitive underwater torpedo, so in effect it would work mostly the same as a regular cannon. I had forgotten about marines, some clarifying text indicating they cannot be targeted is likely to be in order. With that as well as some clarifying text about submerged pieces (it shouldn’t be able to fire at them regardless of if an ability would allow it) I may end up turning it into a keyword to better abbreviate.
Something like this should cover it:
This ship may be given a shoot action while submerged to fire a single cannon; it becomes a 4S cannon that can target only ships on the surface.
If you need/want extra clarification, you could also add “This cannon cannot target submerged ships or Marines on islands.”
You could also steal some of the text from Musketeer about using masts, but I don’t think it’s necessary in this case because it’s implied to be a modifier of an existing cannon/mast rather than an extra cannon using another’s slot.
Airship – How does the requirement of a 5 or 6 roll to hit an aloft ship interact with other roll modifiers? Does a +1 to cannon rolls allow a 4 to hit? If a ship with the double range ability (normally needs a 6 to hit) rolls a 5, does that hit?
Air Dragoons – I like the idea of mini ships that can be handled like crew, but the wording for how these are deployed and used has several issues that need to be addressed.
ALL crew must begin on a ship or your home island normally, so that first sentence is redundant.
Allowing the main crew with the keyword to function fully on a home island breaks a major rule about crew ability usage, which is okay, but that has to be called out specifically and explicitly, like how it’s done with the Marine keyword. Considering how they’re used, I think it would be simpler to drop that island option entirely, and require being on a ship. Deploying them from an island would require a ship to be there at the time: simply use the free crew transfer while docked option to load the main crew long enough to pop out the dragoons. You’d lose a little bit of a potential surprise factor, but I think most players who see a facedown crew sitting on an island by itself will assume it to be a Marine or Dragoon. Any other crew left behind on the island to make room for more treasure will almost certainly be face up, or it wouldn’t have been brought along in the first place. (Plus, any non-Marine crew left behind can be stolen by any ship that docks there, whether nationalities match or not.)
Having the crew take up 3 cargo spaces while facedown on a ship goes against another major crew usage rule where normally things only function while face up. It could be very problematic to enforce, especially if that crew isn’t revealed until very late in a game and lots of other cargo has been transferred on and off the ship in between. It would be very easy for a player to forget (or “forget”) how much space was actually available, and almost impossible for other players to verify it until after the fact. I suggest dropping the “3 cargo spaces” part and just leave it at 1 like normal crew. Then they can take up one space each after being revealed; instead of deploying in the ship’s cargo hold, instead place them so they’re touching the ship to avoid space issues. Thematically you could say whatever flying gear they use is packed up and compacted in storage until they’re ready to use it, and it can’t be quickly or easily folded back up again.
Removing the crew that generates them (and its point value) raises questions about how that point value applies later if one of the three lands on a ship. Does it count nothing? Does it count the full value? Does it take some partial amount? Keeping the main crew in play like a Chieftain avoids that problem, and also avoids taking that big chunk of points off the board; the downside is that it then becomes dead weight that you could still dump somewhere, unless there’s some maintenance effect like with the Chieftain that hurts the Dragoons if lost. An alternative would be to have the dragoons split the cost between them, with the main crew assuming the combined total until revealed; you’d just have to make sure the dragoon prices were always divisible by 3.
“Cannot have their cargo space increased” implies some could have a non-zero cargo hold. Whether any in your set do or not (I didn’t check that close), it opens the door for the possibility in the future, which in turn could create problems if one with cargo got loaded back onto a ship. Logically, the dragoon and whatever it carried would take up ship spaces separately, but there could also be an argument for nesting them. A much simpler solution is to say they “can never carry cargo”.
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@stt1 SkeleboneName: Ictineo
Ability: Submarine. If this ship has an Explorer crew, she gets +1 cargo.
Does this work only with a generic Explorer, or does anyone with the keyword count? Looking specifically at Dominic Freda from RotF (Explorer, +1 cargo, takes up no space), who thanks to the similar-but-technically-stackable wordings would give this ship +2 cargo while taking up none.
Silver Explorers have to be considered too, but they shouldn’t an issue either way.
Name: Gymnote
Ability: Submarine. This ship has a 4S cannon that can be fired while she is submerged; it cannot be fired when she is surfaced.Any restrictions on what it can fire at? This doesn’t override any abilities about shooting at submerged ships, so it would have to be assumed to only work against surface ships unless specifically stated otherwise.
What about a Marine on a island?
With the Born Leader keyword, are you supposed to take an action before rolling for the ability to get SAT? This line from the Code seems to imply that: “-The die roll for this ability is made immediately before giving the action you wish to repeat.” However, the ability text indicates otherwise.
In normal usage the timing won’t matter that much, just as long as the roll happens before doing the action you want to repeat.
That line in the PC about doing it immediately before the action is mostly for bookkeeping/clarity purposes so there’s no confusion about what the roll is being used for, but it also prevents (or at least reduces) any attempts to fudge the rules by generating the action but then removing the crew from the ship before actually taking it. I can’t recall specifics, but I think at one point someone found a weird loophole that line closed.
When an American native canoe is exploring, can you use the ability of another canoe within S to take a treasure from the first canoe (while it’s still exploring), thus allowing the first canoe to load additional treasure(s)? (“Once per turn as a free action, you can transfer one treasure from a friendly ship within S of this ship to this ship.”)
That treasure-grabbing ability isn’t triggered as part of the explore action, so you have to complete the entire action before you can use it.
What you could do is have a non-canoe ship explore to load up with treasure, then have the canoes nearby grab one each from there and move away with their own actions.
If I could have some clarity on transferring cargo. Suppose two friendly ships are docked at the same friendly fort. Can the two ships transfer cargo (treasure, crew, etc) between them? Either by placing it on/in the fort and then onto the other ship or could the cargo simply be moved from A to B without needing to go to the island in between?
Also, where is the “Transfer Rule” covered? Is it in the Code and I’ve just been missing it?
Crew can be freely transferred while docked at the island, but other forms of cargo require explore actions, regardless of the type of island or what else is there. Ship A would have to explore to unload/load, then Ship B would need a separate explore to load/unload. Ship A would then have to explore again if B unloaded something that was wanted.
To freely transfer cargo between the ships with just a single action they have to be touching each other directly, and one has to explore the other; you can’t go through an island or anything else in between.
There’s a Transfer, Load, and Unload section on page 5 of the PC, but that doesn’t really address this situation.
The part about crew (crew specifically, not “cargo”) is in the Docking section of the rulebook, and the transfer between ships (no mention of islands) is at the very end of the Exploring section. The Fort rules don’t add anything that overrides or changes either of those.
The restrictions are as much by exclusion as being specifically spelled out, because of the specific wording used (similar to how sea creatures can “only” take specific actions, which restricts others).
Does your opponent still get to choose if they want to board if you choose not to?
Yes. Blade hits count as ramming, so standard boarding rules apply to each.
The player with the Switchblade can decide the order those rams occur, but once a ramming is resolved, they can’t can’t prevent a boarding if the opponent wants to do it.
For timing purposes, it goes Ram/Board 1, Ram/Board 2, Ram/Board 3, etc. (NOT Ram 1, Ram 2, Ram 3, Board 1, Board 2, Board 3…)
