Boat Handling and naval combat

[Allavandrel]

From reading the core book it seems that maritime issues have been left out for the moment despite they play a significant role in the novels. Hopefully, this can be interpreted as GR has plans for an upcoming companion dealing with boat handling, naval combat, piracy, smuggling, trade etc.

We have had some discussions on how we deal with this. I'm a big fan of Ser Davos Seaworth and will like to play a smuggler; and another in our party considers playing a Salladhor Saan-ish captain/merchant.

Until we get official rules, how do you suggest we manage boat handling and naval combat:
- Should Boat Handling be an ability like Animal Handling?
- If so, which specialities will you suggest (Naval warfare, Smuggling) and what effects should they have?

... and what about naval combat? At the moment there is just one kind of warships, no different naval tactics, and where should the commander ('admiral') be placed, so that he still is able to issue orders (by signal flags).

Any thoughts or suggestions??


Allavandrel Fanmaris
Master of the Hunt

[Renz]

What about a professional ability ? The player picks a profession like "Captain" and may choose some linked specialities.

For instance :
Smith - Weaponcraft, Armorcraft, and so on...
Captain - Navigation, Seamanship...
Engineer - Siege weapons, Fortifications...
Merchant - Trading, Customs & Manners...


PS : please, forgive my english.

[Irontruth]

There are 2 methods for covering "skills" not presented in the book. The first is to create new abilities, the second is to add Qualities that utilize current abilities or take advantage new ability/specialty combos.

Personally, I favor the new Qualities method. One of the things I really like about the system is the low number of abilities. If absolutely necessary, a new specialty can be added, but this should be extremely rare.

Some examples of current abilities uses for ships:

Naval Combat: Warfare
Navigation: Survival (Orientation)
Ship Management: Status (Stewardship)
Operating a shipping business: Cunning (requires Trade quality)
Rowing: Endurance
Moving/Climbing: Athletics
Avoiding falls: Agility

If you wanted to simulate experienced sailors versus inexperienced sailors, increase all test difficulties by +6. Then add a Quality like this:

Sea Legs: Reduce the penalty for all actions out to sea by 3.

Improved Sea Legs: Reduce the penalty for all actions out to sea by 6.

If you're looking for more advanced options, like Qualities that represent ship ownership, I'd use the Landed benefit, but reinterpret it as a ship instead of land. The Sponsor benefit is still a prereq for a ship like that, cause those things aren't cheap and most captains get their first ship from someone else. The Ironborn owe allegiance to someone, other captains like those on trading ships often operate the ship for some wealthier person.

[Siroh]

My thoughts are in my earlier thread:

http://www.greenronin.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=7487

[Allavandrel]

Thanks Siroh. I have copied your useful ideas to this thread for convenience.

I came up with some extra options and want help on a quality as well. The rules deal very well with land based activities, but there is a lot happening on water as well in the books.

These are Extended Specialties

Sailing
Athletics Specialty: Education (Knowledge)
Characters can use bonus dice from Education to aid in their actions aboard ship, whether steering, taking in or letting out sails, weighing anchor etc. Climbing the rigging and keeping balance on the rolling deck are Athletics (Climb) and Agility (Balance) as normal.

Water Navigation
Survival Specialty: Education (Knowledge)
This combination is for navigating by the stars and placement of the sun while away from common landmarks on land.

This is the new Quality and I don't know if it's balanced or not. It might be too weak.

Sea Legs Ability
No Requirement
Add +1D when testing for balance onboard a ship, including when figuring Routine Success. Also, the character is immune to Sea Sickness.

Also, speaking of sea sickness and nausea, any ideas on how to treat that environmental concern?

Personally, I'm a fan of sticking as close to the ASIFR system as possible, and introduce new 'skills' at the lowest possible level. However, a number of arguments can be put forward to support the viewpoint that Boat Handling (or whatever it should be called) should be a separate ability:

- Extended specialities have the disability that a character, who has never sailed before, can be a very skilled pilot because she for some other reason has high values in the relevant ability and speciality. Also, specialities may have to be bended/extended in order to be meaningful. For instance, Education(Knowledge) is used to recall information and identify things around you - not to sheer a river barge down a narrow violent stream.

- Qualities (benefits) have the disadvantage that they are not a requirement (ref. maesters without the 'maester' benefit). Also, tertiary characters don't have qualities, meaning they will be poor pilots, captains etc.

Introducing new abilities and specialities is, in fact, not a good solution either as it will require additional experience costs for marine characters, and non-marine characters may exploit new abilities to gain more experience by reducing this ability to 1.


Regarding naval combat, we have discussed these issues:
- Where should the commander be placed in naval combat? If he is placed onboard(attached to) a warship, he will not be able to issue orders.
- How to board another vessel?
- How to ram another vessel? As it stands, rams may not be equiped on warships.
- It will be nice to distinguish Warfare(Land) and Warfare(Naval), so that Tywin Lannister and Robb Stark will be excellent commanders on land and Euron Greyjoy and Victarion Greyjoy superior commanders on the sea. It will be strange, if Tywin is a better admiral than Euron or Victarion.

[phild]

I can see both sides of the argument. The way I'd play it is as follows: if adventures on the high seas are going to be a big part of your game, make a ability of Sea Faring (or similar) and put your appropriate specialisms in. To maintain the balance on XP and CharGen, you might want to consider dropping an ability - it may be that Animal Handling may be surplus to requirements now (in which case, perhaps lump it under Survival as a set of "outdoors" skills) or that you could combine Stealth and Thievery into one. It's not essential: an alternative is to hand out a small amount of XP more, but that can be risky depending on how minimax your players are.

If you just want to add a bit of maritime to your game, but it's not going to be the be-all and end-all, then I agree with the approaches that makes sea faring skills specialisms on the existing abilities.

[Irontruth]

- Qualities (benefits) have the disadvantage that they are not a requirement (ref. maesters without the 'maester' benefit). Also, tertiary characters don't have qualities, meaning they will be poor pilots, captains etc.

That depends on what you mean by "requirement". The title of "maester" is independent of having the maester quality, yes, but how long do you think you'd be kept as a maester if you had Knowledge 2 and no appropriate benefits to help you perform your duties? Note, if you don't have the Master of Ravens benefit, you can't send messages by raven.

There are numerous qualities that grant additional "actions", such as Trade, Artist, Gifted Teacher, Master of Ravens, etc. You can't perform the action listed in the quality without having the quality. I see no reason why certain sea going actions can't be the same thing. The majority of actions on a ship though can easily fall under other abilities. Managing the ships finances/stores isn't much different from managing a castles finances/stores. Climbing rigging is still climbing. Balancing on a ship, while difficult, is still balancing. Navigating at sea is different from orientation, but similar (I'd make that one a quality).

For sea going commanders, I'd say they have to attach to a unit. If that unit is not involved in combat that round, they can still issues orders. Create a new quality "Naval Commander" that grants +1D to Warfare rolls when fighting naval battles. Remember, the Ironborn are the better sea-farers, but they were still beaten, even at sea, by Robert and his commanders.

As for a ram on a ship, just give it bonus damage on the Charge action. Maybe +4 instead of +2.

[Aran MacFiona]

I disagree from what have been said in this thread.
Steering a sailing boat, even a small one, is very difficult and takes a long time to learn. Even now in our modern navies, steering is a speciality for sailors.
Navigation is a lot more complicated than just orientation. It is an art that belongs to knowledge and not survival. The pilot is the one guy on the boat who can read sea maps and plot a course on those maps. And of course has the knowledge to use tools like a compass, a sextant (But I am not sure if they got it in Westeros universe) and a sand clock.
Climbing rigging is more than still climbing. Remember that a boat is moving under your feet; Just rthat fact makes it a lot more dangerous than normal climbing. There is a reason why in the time of wooden ships the sailors who climbed the rigging were specialised and better paid than the other sailors.

[Irontruth]

I'm not disputing anything your pointing out. I've spent 7 years in the US Navy and am going to work on my level 3 ASA cert this summer (I intend to work on celestial navigation next summer). The reason I think Qualities work better, is because Abilities are pretty big deals. Look at Fighting, using a knife, a halberd and a ball and chain are completely different fighting styles, yet they are all under one skill. Raising cattle and jousting both fall under Animal Handling. Abilities are very large in scope and adding new ones is a really big deal imo. The only thing that I think couldn't fall under a current ability, would be one that uses magic (if you were to expand rules for that).

Let me show you what I think it would look like though.

Navigation
Prereq: Survival 3 (Orientation 2), Language 3

"This allows a sailor to plot a course and navigate a ship at sea."

Does it make absolute sense that a navigator is good at hunting... well, not really, but some of the basic principles of navigation and orientation are the same (they're at least more similar than the difference between raising cows and riding a horse in a tournament). The major difference what you use to measure where you are and what tools you need. The addition of Language 3 means that you need to have some sort of reading skill (or at least develop one looking at maps so often).

Sea Legs

"All skills performed at sea suffer a -3 penalty in calm water and -6 penalty in rough water, taking this benefit reduces those penalties by 3. You are also experienced enough at sea to use Cunning to perform simple tasks of a sailor, basic knots, basic shipcare, etc. You may attempt any test with a difficulty of Challenging (9) or less associated with sailing."

Salty Sailor
Prereq: Sea Legs

"This benefit reduces the penalty for being at sea by an additional 3. With your additional years at sea you have learned to use Cunning for advanced tasks on a ship, complex knots, piloting, sail rigging, etc. You may attempt any test associated with sailing."

The Sea Legs quality represents trained sailors, they have a few years or less at sea and have learned basic duties. The Salty Sailor quality represents a veteran sailor who can perform most tasks out to sea. Two qualities to be a veteran sailor is nothing to shake a stick at. An adult starting character can only take 3 benefits before they need to start taking drawbacks.

You can add more Qualities as needed/prefered. Remember, in addition to these qualities, sailors are going to need Agility, Athletics, Awareness, Cunning and Endurance (plus Fighting if they're going to do any combat).

[phild]

It depends on how important sailing is going to be in your game, but I'm not comfortable with the Qualities route. As it stands, tertiary characters dont have qualities, so only important PCs and NPCs can be effective sailors. It also means older characters cannot be sailors: this may not be entirely true, because it came via Google, but "the oldest person to sail solo nonstop around the world is Minuro Saito of Japan. On his 7th such lone voyage in 2005, he was 71 years old". Simply not possible, even for a so-called "exceptional" Player Character types, if you make sailing dependent on Qualities.

[Irontruth]

Actually, older people can be sailors, read page 88 on Drawbacks, you can voluntarily take more to gain destiny points.

Also, for the most part, I'm not concerned with Teritiary characters and their stats. Imo, if the narrator wants/needs to give them a quality, they can. The stats given to NPC's are completely under the judgement of the narrator and the guidelines given are just that, guidelines.

Remember also, that if teritiary characters are completely forbidden from having benefits, that there would be no craftsmen or merchants in the world (since the Trade quality is required to have a job in the rules).

[zebuleon]

If you want an 80 yr old sailor create him as an adult then age him, give him xp and destiny representing his experience over the years.

I see the qualities restrictions more as a starting point. Meaning that if you create a character at 80 that means those 80 years you didn't do much now your adventure truly begins. your trying to teach an old dog new tricks.

[Aran MacFiona]

I'm not disputing anything your pointing out. I've spent 7 years in the US Navy and am going to work on my level 3 ASA cert this summer (I intend to work on celestial navigation next summer).

Ten years in the French navy for me. But I've been sailing since I was a few monthes old. My father had a passion for the sea and sailing and made sure to transmit it to his kids.


I reread Orientation and I must admit that it could work for some part of navigation. Like being able to follow the right direction without a compass. I am not sure there is compass or sextant in Westeros. But Knowledge is still more important, imo, since it is what gives the knowledge of coasts, sea ways and how to guess where the boat is while in the middle of the sea far away from any land.

I like Sea legs and Salty Sailor. With those qualities as prerequisites for a character with sea experience there is not a need to add new abilities. The ones already in the game with new specialities could work perfectly.

[Irontruth]

Ten years in the French navy for me. But I've been sailing since I was a few monthes old. My father had a passion for the sea and sailing and made sure to transmit it to his kids.

I envy you, I have to travel at least 1,500 miles to get salt water. Lake Superior is only 3 hours drive away, but it's not the same thing as the ocean.

I don't think my qualities method is the only way to go, it was just my point to prove that it can be done. Dividing the various "skills" used for sailing amongst existing abilities works, but so would just adding a Sailing ability. The thing is, that one Sailing ability would have to be broad enough to cover all aspects of sailing and a sailor with Sailing 5 would essentially be able to do every job on a ship flawlessly, which seems less realistic to me.

[Allavandrel]

There are numerous qualities that grant additional "actions", such as Trade, Artist, Gifted Teacher, Master of Ravens, etc. You can't perform the action listed in the quality without having the quality. I see no reason why certain sea going actions can't be the same thing. The majority of actions on a ship though can easily fall under other abilities. Managing the ships finances/stores isn't much different from managing a castles finances/stores. Climbing rigging is still climbing. Balancing on a ship, while difficult, is still balancing. Navigating at sea is different from orientation, but similar (I'd make that one a quality).

and

Remember also, that if teritiary characters are completely forbidden from having benefits, that there would be no craftsmen or merchants in the world (since the Trade quality is required to have a job in the rules).

I don't interprete Qualities (Benefits) as strict as Irontruth. As I see it, they are a beneficial quality to a skill you have earned, learned or trained for. It is said that "Destiny Points and qualities are closely related" (page 70). So if Trade was required to be an artisan, tertiary characters would have had the opportunity to gain at least one Ability Quality. As I see it, you can be an artisan without the Trade quality, but you will not earn as much because you don't have the Trade quality. An example from the books will be that Tobho Mott has the Trade quality, whereas Gendry hasn't when he is first introduced in the books.

In fact, the only place where I remember to have encountered a strict requirement is for the Swim speciality. This suggests to me that if a requirement must be introduced in the game, it should be a speciality.

The thing is, that one Sailing ability would have to be broad enough to cover all aspects of sailing and a sailor with Sailing 5 would essentially be able to do every job on a ship flawlessly, which seems less realistic to me.

A sailor with Sailing 5 will be a very experienced sailor who most likely has worked on all aspects on a ship (see Rank 5, page 52). With a few specialities and the use of extended specialities, this seems to be in line with the existing rules.

[Le Faiseur]

I think that I would use the following system.

I would create specialties adapted to sail, such more or less as described by Siroh :
Sailing
Athletics Specialty
Characters can use bonus dice to aid in their actions aboard ship, whether steering, taking in or letting out sails, weighing anchor etc. Climbing the rigging and keeping balance on the rolling deck are Athletics (Climb) and Agility (Balance) as normal.

Water Navigation
Education specialty
This is for navigating by the stars and placement of the sun while away from common landmarks on land.

Sea Legs
New Quality
Add +1B when testing any physical action aboard a ship, combat excluded. Ships are never treacherous terrain for you in normal conditions. Also, the character is immune to Sea Sickness.

That is, with minor modifications, the points developped bySiroh. Then, I would just create a canevas of penalties applied to ship manipulation, steering, and for any physical action aboard. Something like :
Normal condition, almost no wind, calm sea : -1D penalty
Windy, calm sea : -2D
And so on until -5D when trapped in a great storm. Each penalty die would be absorbed by Specialty dice.
Then, if you don't have the right Specialty, you will get penalties, ensuring that you are less efficient than real sailors.

Would it work ?
I didn't have the opportunity to play ASIFR, yet, so perhaps this system would not work.

[Irontruth]

A sailor with Sailing 5 will be a very experienced sailor who most likely has worked on all aspects on a ship (see Rank 5, page 52). With a few specialities and the use of extended specialities, this seems to be in line with the existing rules.

My only complaint about that is that most sailors couldn't perform most duties. They could tie some knots, pull on ropes, scrub decks, etc. A very experienced sailor might know something about sail repair, basic ship repair and piloting. Almost no one knew how to navigate though (I agree Aran on this, Navigating shouldn't be easy to have). If you make a Sailing skill though, by the rules all of a sudden every person in Westeros has Sailing 2.

As for qualities, I'd say Gendry did have the Trade benefit. He just didn't have a high Cunning yet. Also note, there are no rules for this kind of use under the Cunning ability, but only a rule under the benefit. As for other benefits, like Master of Ravens, if the benefit isn't required, why would you ever take it? It doesn't give you a bonus to any roll, the difficulty as listed is pretty easy. Under this thinking it's a superfluous quality.

Swim is the only specialty that I see with the listed requirement of 1B to perform the action.

Where as every Quality, you can't use the listed benefit unless you have the Quality. Examples include every [Weapon Type] Fighter benefit.

[Allavandrel]

As for other benefits, like Master of Ravens, if the benefit isn't required, why would you ever take it? It doesn't give you a bonus to any roll, the difficulty as listed is pretty easy. Under this thinking it's a superfluous quality.

I'm definitely not sure whether I'm right in interpreting benefits this way, but following my line of reasoning Master of Ravens isn't required to dispatch ravens, but the difficulty is significantly higher, if a character doesn't have the benefit. For instance, the base difficulty can be Hard (15) modified by weather, distance etc., indicating that a character with Animal Handling 2 will not have a chance to accomplish the task, whereas a character with Animal Handling 5 has a fair chance of success, even without the Master of Ravens benefit, although she will be a lot better if she has the benefit.

If you make a Sailing skill though, by the rules all of a sudden every person in Westeros has Sailing 2.

I agree that making Sailing an ability is not without considerations! I don't know whether it is a problem that every person has Sailing 2. It just indicates that they are able to accomplish basic tasks like rowing a row boat in calm waters, tie a simple knot etc. In my opinion it is not so different from Healing 2, Animal Handling 2 or Marksmanship 2. My primary concern is that it can be exploited to gain additional experience points in character generation.

[Davechan]

Personally I'm of the opinion that the existing Abilities and Specialities adequately cover the skills needed to crew and pilot a ship. Not perfectly, maybe, but adequately. I think an actual "Sailor" Ability is largely unnecessary, on the basis that it is unnecessary for the vast majority of people in Westeros and further afield, and that it would be too general for characters who actually cared about it to be really meaningful - if all it takes to be a good sailor is having one Ability high, then becoming a good sailor is a meaningless achievment. Cunning, Agility, Awareness, Athletics, Survival, and Knowledge - all of these are appropriate to tasks aboard a ship. Technically this does mean that anyone can be a competent sailor, but I think this is an example of where common sense has to interact with the rules - if your character doesn't know how to crew a ship, they can't crew it until they've been taught. If they're really agile and strong, they'll probably be really good crew once they've been taught how to do it. Personally I'd hand out penalty dice to represent unfamiliarity, reducing the amount the more familiar they became. It comes down to what you want out of the sailing rules as well. If the point is that all of the players are competent sailors, then they are all competent sailors. Otherwise, how much fun is it going to be for a player if they're playing a non-sailing character in a game that is set mainly on a ship? (OK, potentially fun, but still... *grin*)

Actually, older people can be sailors, read page 88 on Drawbacks, you can voluntarily take more to gain destiny points.

Yup, you could take Missing Eye, Missing Leg, Missing Hand... uh.... Insulting Parrot... (Couldn't resist ^_^)

[Le Faiseur]

If you make a Sailing skill though, by the rules all of a sudden every person in Westeros has Sailing 2.

I agree that making Sailing an ability is not without considerations! I don't know whether it is a problem that every person has Sailing 2. It just indicates that they are able to accomplish basic tasks like rowing a row boat in calm waters, tie a simple knot etc. In my opinion it is not so different from Healing 2, Animal Handling 2 or Marksmanship 2. My primary concern is that it can be exploited to gain additional experience points in character generation.

Besides, the problem of everyone having 2 in Sailing can be addressed simply by considering that every Navigation actions begin with a penalty die for everyone, on calm water with no wind or a gentle breeze.
Then penalty dice accumulate according to weather, bad ship, etc.
If this new activity begins right away with a -1D for everyone, that means that, actually, "everyone" has only 1D effective on a boat, ensuring that they can stay safe when seated, but not much more...

Then, Specialties can absorb the penalty dice due to bad weather and circumstantial events.

So, a character with 3 in Athletics but no sailing Specialties will be able to row in a calm water with only a little current, however, he will not be able to resist a steady current, lacking the rowing techniques.

I mean : I canoed once and was able to do it properly but not quite effectively. I needed time each time I wanted to turn, when I turned upside-down, I was unable to put my canoe right again and needed to get out, swim, grab it and turn it. And it was in a gentle river. I would have drown in a rapid.
On a ship, as I do not sail very often, I am sure I do not have "my normal 3 in Agility", even on calm sea...

[Allavandrel]

It comes down to what you want out of the sailing rules as well. If the point is that all of the players are competent sailors, then they are all competent sailors.

Yes, you and other forumists are absolutely right on this! Animal Handling is not very useful for ironborns except if they train parrots (the Knight being the exception), whereas it is very essential for dothraki characters. In contrast, Sailing as an ability will be most appropriate for ironborns, whereas it will be completely useless for dothrakis.

[Allavandrel]

I mean : I canoed once and was able to do it properly but not quite effectively. I needed time each time I wanted to turn, when I turned upside-down, I was unable to put my canoe right again and needed to get out, swim, grab it and turn it. And it was in a gentle river. I would have drown in a rapid.
On a ship, as I do not sail very often, I am sure I do not have "my normal 3 in Agility", even on calm sea...

I had the same experience, although not entirely sober when I did it. My skills in a canoe is just as horrible as my skills on horseback. I bet Aran MacFiona and Irontruth are having a laugh, when they read this...

[Irontruth]

I think both options can work just fine, a new ability and/or new qualities. My own personal preference is qualities, because I don't want the required additional XP expenditure for another skill. Qualities are more fluid and adaptable in my mind.

I'm definitely not sure whether I'm right in interpreting benefits this way, but following my line of reasoning Master of Ravens isn't required to dispatch ravens, but the difficulty is significantly higher, if a character doesn't have the benefit. For instance, the base difficulty can be Hard (15) modified by weather, distance etc., indicating that a character with Animal Handling 2 will not have a chance to accomplish the task, whereas a character with Animal Handling 5 has a fair chance of success, even without the Master of Ravens benefit, although she will be a lot better if she has the benefit.

The benefit doesn't say "+9 to dispatching ravens." It says "You may dispatch ravens."

What about each of the weapon benefits, can I just increase the difficulty by 9 and get the benefit of Axe Fighter III without actually having it? What about Double-Shot?

IMO, to get what is listed in the Quality, you need to have it first. If it's a bonus, you can't have the bonus unless you have it. If it's a special action, you can't perform the special action unless you have it.

This does bring up an idea though, I may allow a house rule where you can spend a destiny point to mimic a quality for one action.

[Aran MacFiona]

Yes, it could work with both adding a new ability or adding a new quality with new specialities inside existing ability. But the 2nd option is more in the spirit of the system than the 1st.
For the Iron Born / Dothraki comparison, imo, it makes more sense to go with quality than ability.

And I am all for insulting parrot being mandatory for creating an old sailor.

[Pytorb]

Apologies for the length of this post, it seems to have grown somewhat in the telling...

I agree that using qualities within the existing abilities is more within the spirit of the rules, but it does look rather more complicated. Personally I'm thinking of house-ruling in Boat Handling as a new ability. However characters would automatically be deficient in on of either Boat Handling or Animal Handling to reflect the fact that in most cultures children either grow up around boats or animals but rarely both (with the possible exception of shepherding and goat herding).

The kind of specialities I would envisage for Boat Handling would be:
Small Boats (rowing and sailing),
Large Boats (crewing a large river boat or ocean going vessel, either rowing, sailing or both) and
Ship's Captain (being a mate or captain on a large boat).
I would also envisage a new speciality under Warfare for Naval Strategy and under Survival for Fishing. I would allow the use of the Orientate speciality under Survival for navigating on water but it would be a lot more difficult without the Navigator Benefit below...

The kind of benefits I would envisage would be the Sea Legs one mentioned previously in this thread by Le Faiseur:

Sea Legs
Add +1B when testing any physical action aboard a ship, combat excluded. Ships are never treacherous terrain for you in normal conditions. Also, the character is immune to Sea Sickness

as well as:
Aloft
Add +1B when testing any physical action when suspended from (either directly attached or indirectly by holding on to) rope, combat excluded. This is cumulative with any benefit from Sea Legs. Precarious Surfaces are never treacherous terrain for you in normal conditions. Also your climbing speed and speed across precarious surfaces is increased by 1 yard per degree of success.

Sea Dog
Requires: Sea Legs and Aloft
Add +1B to any Survival or Endurance checks aboard a ship and to Language checks at any time. Ships are never treacherous terrain for you in any circumstances and no Penalty Dice are applied to your Fighting skill in normal conditions whilst aboard a ship.

Navigator
Requires: Language 3, Decipher 1B and either Orientation 1B or Knowledge Focus - Astronomy
Characters can convert Orientation bonus dice into test dice whilst navigating at sea. Characters can read nautical charts, many nautical charts may be written cryptically to stop their knowledge being stolen hence the Decipher requirement (though this may not be enough for the truly obscure or encrypted charts). Characters may substitute their Cunning Ability for their Survival ability whilst navigating at sea.

(additional Orientation difficulty modifiers
+2 - on a river or at sea whilst in sight of familiar coastline
+5 - at sea whilst in sight of unfamiliar coastline
+10 - in deep ocean, no sight of land
+2 - mist
+5 - fog)

Any thoughts?

Peter