I’m deeply disappointed you didn’t take the chance to go with “Ditch the caves, hit the waves!”
You’ve got a bright future in dwarven politicking/travel agency. 🤌🏼
I have issue with almost all of your points.
- Dex & wisdom would be the important stats for sailors IMO (i am not saying strength and con are useless, but just not as important, they would be 3rd and 4th IMO).
- Darkvision wouldn’t do a damn thing, its range would barely get off the side of the boat.
- Poison resistance is not disease resistance.
- Some spoiled food would be poison, but some would also be disease (depends on how it spoiled and the food).
- In order for short stature to be relevant to ship design, they would need a completely custom designed ship tailor made for them, which would have benifits but sounds unlikely for what pirates would be sailing. (That being said, a dwarven merchant ship designed speciifcally for their stature would be a massive pain for normal height characters to battle on)
- lower speed means they swim slower too which means going overboard is even worse.
EDIT: dwarven submarines!
- short stature actually hugely relevant as submarines are notoriously cramped
- darkvision means no need for lights in the sub, beneficial for multiple (admittedly somewhat minor) reasons.
- honestly no clue what stats would be important for a sub, no argument here
- toxic gasses less of a problem thanks to poison resistance
- Dont even need to go to the surface, a fully underwater submarine port could be connected to existing dwarven settlements near the ocean with the correct design and planning.
- Also benefits from legendary dwarven engineering.
Dex is valuable for tall ships, but steamships and ironclads, str/con is the way to go.
Dex would be super important for them too. Cannons of all flavors aim with dex due to being ranged weapons.
For sure wisdom being the highest priority unless they always sail near the coast, but to be fair you only need 2 people with high wisdom
Darkvision limited to 60ft. Nighttime navigation was based on stars.
A ship can barely contain enough ale to last a dwarf a month, let alone an entire crew…
Darkvision limited to 60ft. Nighttime navigation was based on stars.
You don’t need darkvision to see stars and that would be dim light, so darkvision is a boon
Then it doesn’t help navigation
It still means they can see the area within 60’ of the boat as bright light
How does that help with navigation?
It helps them navigate around the ship. But seriously, it could be used as a strategy to navigate with lights off and not be seen by other ships.
Tbh, that’s a rule that makes sense in context and something where I as a GM would make a house rule.
Even the darkest night at sea is not nearly as dark as the mines, so I’d totally allow for darkvision to be range-less (or long-range) on the sea.
Having lived on a boat for years, I can tell you right now, you show me a body building midget, and I’ll show you an amazing marine mechanic.
Marcus Miles has entered the chat.
That dude’s a beast.
I am a dwarf and I’m sailing a ship
Saily saily ship
Saily saily ship
They aren’t very buoyant though, are they? What happens when one falls overboard?
You go back and mine another one.
The copper dwarves are excellent sailors.
Saily saily ship
I would say dexterity isn’t such a bad stat while moving on the masts or wet planks. and since they can see in the dark too, and further because they are much larger, elves win again -.-
What is this, dwarves for giants? Those fuckers are at least 5m tall, goddamn.
Can dwarves survive such prolonged periods so far removed from rock, stone, and dirt?
Similar to vampires, every dwarven ship has an enormous boulder occupying a conspicuous place in the quarters. Sleeping near this “home stone” is necessary to prevent dwarves from going sea crazy.
Ah like in Warcraft 2 you can have submarines with dwarves
“The Boat Ramp of Durin, Lord of Mooria. Speak, matey, and enter. I, Narvi, made it.”
My previous character was a Dwarf Marine (barbarian, path of the ancestral guardian). He was wielding an anchor as a 2-handed weapon.
He met his fate killing a sub-boss. (that is: a boss that came from the sea floor, the captain of a submersible galleon)
