Airship Combat

Soaring on wings of cloth or steel. Cannons roaring and the pounding of munitions against a sturdy hull. The cheer of men as their harpoon sinks into an enemy deck and they clamber aboard to make the battle personal. Airship combat can be an exhilarating change from normal based combat, but it comes with a few unique combat actions.

Initiative

Whenever combat occurs in the air, players roll initiative as usual. If they are at a station, they can elect to use that ship's station actions instead of their player actions. Ships do not roll iniative and unmanned stations do nothing unless they are automated or have a global effect, either of which will be detailed in the explanation of a station's actions. Unless otherwise stated, global actions always occur at initiative 20.

Movement in Combat

Airships can never move backward unless a special function of a ship designates otherwise. Ships always face forward and move forward at regular speed. Ships can only move forwrd or diagonally from their current position. Moving diagonally costs twice as much movement. . You will find airships to be generally far less maneuverable than combat on foot. Movement is explained in further detail later.

Actions in Combat

When a creature acts on their turn, they can take any of their normal combat actions as detailed in the PHB p.192 if possible, or take a special combat action determined by their current airship station or general position on the airship.

Station Action

An airship has a various number of stations that, when occupied by an intelligent creature, allow for different actions to be taken. A single action may be taken at a station per turn, unless an ability states otherwise. This is it's own action type and abilities that give multiple attack actions or bonus actions do not affect the number of station actions that can be taken. Effects like the Haste spell that give an additional action on a turn would allow an additional station action to be taken.

Boarding

A crewman on the deck of an airship may safely board an enemy ship that has been grappled. If the ship has not been grappled, a crewman can still attempt to board with an Athletics check that has a DC equal to the distance the creature is attempting to jump (even if the distance exceeds their natural long jump ability)

Changing Stations

It is assumed most distances between stations on a ship can be managed in a single movement. Thus, it takes one action for a creature to switch from its current station to another.

Changes to Combat

A number of minor changes have been made to airship combat to make it more intiutive and flexible for players.

Ability Checks and Saving Throws

Since ships have no inherent statistics, whenever an ability check or a saving throw is made, the modifier is the proficiency bonus of the relevant position on the ship. If no position fits the criteria of relevance, the default modifier is the proficiency bonus of whoever is manning the helm.

Grappling

Along the same line as other ability checks, when a grapple is made, the helmsman can use his action to try to break his ship free from an opponents grapple by making a contested roll vs. the opponent's Athletics (Strength) score, or the opposing airship helmsman's proficiency score. After successfully grappling an opponent, an airship may board.

Offline Stations

Stations can be knocked offline when damage to a ship passes a certain damage amount indicated next to the ship's Hit Point Total or when the ship takes a critical hit. This is meant to create more dynamic combat scenario and meaningful choices, even when airship combat is 1 vs. 1. Which station goes offline is determined by a dice roll and the corresponding station loses power. Not every station has a a special offline effect. Some stations just cease to functions.

Disabled Stations

A ship station can be disabled for a number of reasons, most commonly when an offline station incurs further damage. A station that has been disabled cannot be repaired without great mechanic knowledge and proper tools and parts.

Inherently Magical Artillery

All aspects of an airship run on the magical core to some degree. This makes all weaponry fired from an airship magical for the purposes of overcoming resistances.

Directional Attacks

Weaponry on airships is extremely limited. Weapons can only attack the direction they are facing. Starboard weapon systems can only attack to the right, port weapon systems can only attack to the left, bow weapon systems to the front, etc.

Ship Rating

Airship combat cannot be dealt with like regular combat. As a result, airborne vehicles get a ship rating equal to their relative challenge rating, however this does not account for the individual fighting power of the combatants of any ship. Thus, ships are given an SR rating which may be lower than the CR of the combat. SR and CR XP does not stack.