Ship Combat (5e Variant Rule)

Ground Rules

General Ship infos

Ships vary in size and so do Combat values.
You can find Ship Statblocks and the (Semi)Offcial Combatsystem here
I Would recommend this system for bigger Combats With a lot of members because its too hard to keep track of all those Initiatives
Ships have Immunity against Poison and psychic damage, resistance against radiant and necrotic damage and vulnerability against fire damage.

Starting and winning a fight

On sight you can chase another ship and meanwhile shot it.
If a ship shipps to another to attack it, they align next to eachother, 30ft appart and start fighting.
For that to happen the attacked ship must fit in one size class range. for example a normal ship can only attack small boats to big ships.
On start every crew member rolls an Initiative.

In order to win such a fight, you either have to kill the opponents whole crew, get the opponent to surrenderor or sink the ship.
If you sink the ship all of the ships ressources get lost.
The fight ends without a winner if one party gets 50ft away from the other

Possible Actions

Weapon: Depending on the type of weapon you might have to use a move to reload.
Ranged weapons can attack either the hall, controll or movement of the ship.
You can also attack a weapon specifically with disadvantage on your throw.
Destroyed weapons can only be repaired out of combat.
Hook: You can throw a hook on your opponents ship to hook them.
If you roll Nat20 you pull a opponents crew member into the water.
If you roll Nat1 the hook falls into the water and you loose it.
Once the ship is hooked the crew needs two moves to unhook themselfs.
Hooked ships can't move

Plank: If the opponent is hooked you can connect the ships with a plank. the you have to roll 1d20>= the distance in ft. if you miss the plank walls isto the water.

If you want to go over the plank and get attacked on there you get into a plank fight.
Every hit, you have to throw Dexterity against eachother.
If one of them rolls a Nat20 and they have a higher roll they kick them into the water.

Going off the Plank counts as a move.

Rope Acrobat skillcheck on Distance-10 AC if you fail you fall into the water, if you succeed you land on the other deck. On Nat20 you land on an opponents crew member and do 1d8 Bludgeoning damage

Ship Movement You can move 1d6 ft closer or further from the other boat.
You cannot move away from the other ship if hooked.
Swimming Falling into the water can be fatal. If your charakter can not swim you have to do a saving throw to not drown. You can only get up if a crew member helps you. If you can swim, falling into the water is survivable on your own. You can climb on one of the two boat with a survival skill check. to climb up you need to make a Acrobatic skill check
normal moves Of cause you can also do normal actions with some little changes.
A ranged attack will do damage to the ship (part where target stands on) if you miss.
Fire and AoE attacks always do damage to the ship (part where target stands on).

Leaks

Once the Hall is under half HP the ship starts gettin leaks everytime a weapon hits.
Leaks do 1d6 damage per round if not fixed.
To fix a leak you need to do a sleight of hand skillcheck 15DC and a plank. The underdeck floods with water at 4 leaks for at least 2 rounds. If you cant breath under water you cannot go under deck at this point.

If the boat reaches 0HP it sinks. Its up to the DM what happens next.

Afterword: This concept is in a test phase. I will make changes about it if needed I hope you still like it. i dont think there is something like that elsewhere.

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