Naval Combat Sourcebook

Question

I know there was a book in 3.5 that centered on naval campaigns, with classes for ship captains and rules for Narrative naval combat. Has that book been updated for 4e, or are there any other books in 4e with similar rulesets, or has someone got some homebrew rules that cover the same ground?

Answer 1

Chris Perkins, DM to the Stars, put a blog entry or two recently about a 4E campaign in which they do naval combat. While not an official sourcebook, the rules are here.

EDIT The DnD community sites have been acting up. If you get a big server error page, please go first to the dnd homepage and then re-follow the link. Yes, it's a pain. Seems to have to do with cookies.

SON OF EDIT You don't need to register on the WotC website to see these articles, AFAIK. I tried logging out and could read the documents just fine.

Answer 2

This may be related to the question: Fantasy adventure modules with naval adventuring

This is some additional detail about WoTC's dnd-3.5 supplement: Stormwrack, which I cover in my answer there...

Not only are rules for sea campaigns offered, but rules for including water environments in land-based D&D campaigns and dungeon adventures are also covered.^WOTC

Besides extending the standard classes with seafaring skills and spells and such, it adds several prestige classes: Knight of the Pearl, Legendary Captain, Leviathan Hunter, Scarlet Corsair, Sea Witch, Stormcaster, and Waveskeeper.

The narrative naval combat method is detailed in chapter 1. The first included encounter The Sable Drake is very verbosely described and seems to illustrate this method.

Sadly, I'm unable to find any mention of a 4th edition release date. :-(

Also, if you're not afraid to convert, also see Swashbuckling Adventures' Ships and Sea Battles - which has rules and stats for d20 and 7th-sea.