In The Navy

This week we continue our exploration of vehicle combat in the Tome of Whispers. So far, we've looked at a general overview of the concept. Today, let's examine the roles of the ship's crew. These roles are how characters interface with the vehicle combat systems. There are a variety of crew roles, each with a different focus. This diversity of responsibility ensures that every character has a chance to use their unique talents and feel included. Each role has a number of different skill checks that happen frequently and tends to be active during one or more specific phases of vehicle combat.

In professional militaries, these crew roles might be filled by a dedicated and specialized individual for whom that role is their only task. On other ships, these roles might be filled by whoever can be found to handle them. Very small ships might require a few crew members to switch between multiple roles as needed. The roles discussed here are only those which have a direct application in a combat situation. A ship may have other roles for its crew outside of combat, like cooks or diplomats, but crew with non-combat roles are often assigned an additional role for combat, unless the ship is particularly well staffed.

Knowledge

Most of a ship's crew roles list Knowledge as an option for the checks a crew member can use to fulfill that role. Whether a character can use Knowledge this way depends on that character's knowledge specialties. Some knowledge specialties may have obvious applications, such as "sailing" on a sailing ship, but other specialties may also have applications. For example, a navigator might get a lot of use out of cartography, a boatswain might use knowledge of a creature type if the ship is pulled by creatures of that type, and so on. Whether a knowledge specialty applies to a crew check is subject to GM discretion.

Boatswain

Common Checks: Athletics, Diplomacy, Intimidation, Knowledge, Legerdemain, Nature

A boatswain is responsible for assigning "generic" crewmates to assist characters handling crew roles, or to handle unfilled crew roles, during the Orders phase. On a sailing ship, the boatswain is also responsible for setting the rigging during the Throttle phase. On a galley or horsepower ship, the boatswain is the one in charge of setting or maintaining speed during the Throttle phase instead. Setting the ship's speed is obviously important but knowing where to assign the ship's crew can shore up a weak role or make a strong role truly exceptional.

Captain

Common Checks: Diplomacy, Intimidation, Knowledge

The captain is responsible for determining the ship's overall strategy during the Orders phase. A captain also exercises their leadership during this phase, providing a morale bonus to checks for the round. Depending on the results of their check, the captain obtains a certain total of bonus, like +4, which they can then distribute amongst the crew based on where they think the help is needed and which checks are likely to happen as a result of their orders. Because this role is generally only active during the Orders phase, captains have the easiest time covering another role at the same time if there are not enough characters to cover every role. Because they cannot grant themselves a leadership bonus, however, covering other crew roles is not usually the first choice for a captain.

Crewmate

Common Checks: None

This role is not filled by characters, but instead by the ship's "generic" crew. Crewmates are assigned in groups by the boatswain to assist with the performance of other roles on the ship, and are assigned in units of 5. Each unit of crewmates assisting a role provides a cumulative +1 event bonus to that role's checks. A unit of crewmates can also be assigned to fill an unoccupied role, whether because a character filling that role became incapacitated or because there were not enough characters to fill all the roles in the first place. A unit of crewmates assigned to a role only has a +1 bonus to any checks made as a part of that role. While this can be shored up by assigning even more crewmates to assist, it's always preferable to have an actual character handling a role. The bigger the ship, the more crewmates it has to assign. This is especially important, because the difficulty of many checks is based on the ship's size.

Engineer

Common Checks: Arcana, Crafting, Knowledge

Engineers are responsible for keeping the ship in working order. On wooden ships, this role is often called the "carpenter" instead. As the ship and its systems become damaged, it is up to engineers to make repairs during the Execute phase to fix problems before they compound. On a ship with magical or technological engines, an engineer is also responsible for modifying the ship's speed during the Throttle phase. A ship and its systems are likely to take damage during a combat encounter and so this role, while possibly optional on a ship without engines, nevertheless can make a huge difference in a ship's longevity. A ship can have multiple engineers, each one acting independently to relieve the ship of multiple damaged sections at once.

Gunner

Common Checks: Legerdemain, Siege Weapon Attacks

Gunners are responsible for firing and reloading a ship's weapons during the Execute phase. Each gunner is able to fire or reload weapons once during this phase, so ships with many weapons tend to have a large number of gunners to operate as many weapons at a time as possible. Each gunner must choose between firing and loading a weapon at the start of the phase. If a gunner chooses to fire, they can hold their shot for whenever they deem they have the best chance based on the movements of the ships and the firing arcs of their weapons. Generic crewmates can be assigned to reload weapons, leaving a gunner free to swap between firing multiple weapons in subsequent rounds. Siege weapons can take a long time to load, however, and having a gunner focus on the task can dramatically reduce the time before the weapon can fire again, even if there are crewmates to spare on reloading.

Navigator

Common Checks: Knowledge, Nature, Perception, Survival

A navigator is responsible for charting the ship's course during the Helm phase, which the pilot will attempt to enact during the Execute phase. A navigator must take care not to chart a course that is too complicated for the pilot to handle, since turning a ship is not always easy, and sharper turns are even more difficult. If the navigator's plotted course passes through hexes that contain hazards, they attempt to preemptively reduce the difficulty of those hazards for the pilot. A ship usually only has one navigator, and the navigator might frequently also double as the pilot on smaller ships, since those roles are active during different phases. A skilled navigator makes keeping the ship on course easier and is critical when trying to pass through dangerous hexes.

Pilot

Common Checks: Athletics, Knowledge, Perception, Survival

The pilot is responsible for steering the ship during the Execute phase. This involves following the course charted by the navigator, as well as reacting to any hazards along the way. The pilot is active when resolving almost every hex in a combat situation and is perhaps the one role that a ship can function least well without. Turning the ship and avoiding hazards are a pilot's bread and butter but so is taking evasive action to make the job of enemy gunners more difficult. All of these tasks are frequently made more challenging by the weather, and have their difficulties based on the size of the ship, so it's important to ensure you have a pilot that's up to the task.

Surgeon

Common Checks: Medicine, Nature

Surgeons are responsible for maintaining the health of the crew. As the ship sustains casualties during the Aftermath phase, surgeons can preemptively attempt to reduce the severity of those casualties. After casualties are sustained, surgeons can do their best to patch up the crew during the Execute phase, returning formerly incapacitated crew to their posts for the next round. Like engineers, this role can seem like one of the most optional, but keeping casualties down is critical to making sure the ship remains functional. Also like engineers, a ship can have multiple surgeons acting independently or in concert. A surgeon's role gets more important the longer a vehicle combat encounter goes, but many surgeons might start by covering another role until the crew starts getting hurt.

Wildcard

Common Checks: Varies

This role is a catch-all for anything not covered by the other crew roles. A wildcard typically uses character abilities to directly affect ships and crew, whether their own or enemies, or even the combat environment itself. For example, a wildcard might use telepathic or divination abilities to determine what orders another ship's captain is giving before their own captain gives orders, might control the wind strength during the Throttle phase, or cast spells to damage a ship or its crew during the Execute phase. These examples are not exhaustive, and an individual might slip in and out of the wildcard role over the course of a vehicle combat encounter as needed. This role is deliberately kept vague, and is largely subject to GM discretion, but is important for ensuring that every character has something to contribute.

---

One thing that becomes apparent when looking at these roles is that there are more of them than the typical adventuring party size. On a small ship crewed only by a party, this might mean that each character has to handle multiple roles. On larger ships, some crew roles might be handled by NPCs that the party recruits. These NPC crew and crewmates can go a long way toward fleshing out a ship, making it feel more alive and giving plenty of roleplay opportunities even during long travel sections. The diversity of check options for each of these roles ensures that there is always something that any given character can be good at on a ship, and that no character has to be built specifically for vehicle combat in order to be effective. The diversity of uses for those roles also ensures that every character remains engaged during each round of vehicle combat, too, so nobody feels left out while some of the other characters steal the show during these unusual encounters.

When we next visit vehicle combat, we'll take a look at the ships themselves. Next time, however, we'll return to the card game to introduce another new villain, so stay tuned!