Fire on ship and the proper way to resolve

[Jack Tar]

Hey Everyone,

I'll first apologize if this info is already on the forum but I didn't feel like scanning the threads more than I did.

I am playing a solo game today to familiarize myself with the advanced rules more and I am finding the fire damage and extinguish rules a little confusing ( this could be do to the few beers I have enjoyed while sailing :drinks: ). Any light anyone wants to shed on the topic for this novice player is greatly appreciated. I really just want to make sure I am doing things correctly.

Here is my understanding of how it all happens and resolves...please correct if I am wrong.

Turn the damage takes place (lets just say turn 1 for example sake):
- Fire damage chit is revealed > Add one fire special damage token to the special damage box. (do you take fire damage when this happens or only at the beginning of the following turn?)

Start of the following turn (turn 2):
- The ship takes fire damage before the planning phase. I fully understand that the fire damage maxes out the leftmost empty box on the damage track, one damage for each fire on board. What chit is used for this in the damage track...a special damage fire chit...does it really matter since the box is maxed out anyway?

Action Phase (turn 2):
- The extinguish fire action is played, nothing is done this turn but the tile stays face up in the planned actions track until the next action phase.

Turn 3:
- In the action phase of this turn the extinguish fire chit is placed into the special damage box and the ship takes another fire damage on the damage track.
- At the end of this turn the fire is extinguished and both action and special damage counter are removed.

Thanks for any assistance!

[fredmiracle]

I think you've got it



Turn the damage takes place (lets just say turn 1 for example sake):
- Fire damage chit is revealed > Add one fire special damage token to the special damage box. (do you take fire damage when this happens or only at the beginning of the following turn?)


No actual fire damage on turn 1. It happens at the beginning of turn 2, before planning, just as you have indicated




Start of the following turn (turn 2):
- The ship takes fire damage before the planning phase. I fully understand that the fire damage maxes out the leftmost empty box on the damage track, one damage for each fire on board. What chit is used for this in the damage track...a special damage fire chit...does it really matter since the box is maxed out anyway?


I guess it doesn't matter, but I've been using fire special damage markers. It seems logical



Action Phase (turn 2):
- The extinguish fire action is played, nothing is done this turn but the tile stays face up in the planned actions track until the next action phase.

Turn 3:
- In the action phase of this turn the extinguish fire chit is placed into the special damage box and the ship takes another fire damage on the damage track.
- At the end of this turn the fire is extinguished and both action and special damage counter are removed.


yep

One other potential question is whether you can plan an extinguish action when there is no fire (i.e. on turn one in your example), as a preventative measure, so as to be able to put the fire out at the end of turn 2. Strictly interpreted, the rules seem to exclude this possibility. But I've been allowing this as a house rule.

[Jack Tar]

Fredmiracle, thanks for the reply!

As to your comment I personally wouldn't allow that as a house rule since it is in my opinion as a landlubber that there are not crew just sitting around waiting to fix something (every man had a job..especially on the smaller ships).

See this post..http://sailsofglory.org/showthread.php?1920-Multiple-Repair-Extinguish-Fire-Pump-Actions

In particular this post from csadn in the above link.
"I can attest to this -- for ex.: If the pump capstan has eight bars, and each bar can accommodate a maximum four men, then the 33rd and subsequent men assigned to the capstan aren't going to be able to do anything except get in the way."

From my limited knowledge I don't think the pumps had a capstan, but the principal remains the same..unless you are the captain of a wave 2 1st rate. I'd imagine that you could make a house rule if you play with these ships since they did have a MASSIVE amount of souls aboard and there is the possibility that the RN or any other navy for that matter had men set aside to specifically take care of damage. Anyway just my two cents.

[fredmiracle]

As to your comment I personally wouldn't allow that as a house rule since it is in my opinion as a landlubber that there are not crew just sitting around waiting to fix something (every man had a job..especially on the smaller ships). ...


Yes, it's a judgement call. Mostly I do it simply because fire is pretty rough--minimum two hull boxes damage, and (mostly) unrepairable. Two fires at the same time is catastrophic--minimum of 6 hull box damage. So providing some way to buy insurance seems benign. I consider it as representing all the efforts made to wet down decks, fill buckets, fill the longboat with water, station people to watch out for sparks, etc. But as I said, it's certainly only a house rule and open to debate.

[Jack Tar]

I would completely agree with you that a fire on board a ship is a serious kick in the...well....be creative; but then again it was no small matter in real life. I completely agree with you that there were many preventative measures that were taken to prevent fires from happening. So if I were to make a house rule I would do it this way (and totally just my opinion and this idea is completely off the cuff). I would not limit it to the size of the ship and would create a new action tile that would be called something similar to 'fire watch'. This action could be played at any time lasting a duration of two turns (maybe up to 3). I wouldn't want to make this a permanent action since I don't like the idea of having a permanent 'insurance' policy....damage will happen, but I like the idea of possibly mitigating it (although it would take one action space for the duration it is active thus limiting what you can do...especially as damage is taken). The amount of times this action could be played would be limited by the size of the ship. For example....maybe sloops could play it once per game, frigates twice and so on since the larger the ship the more crew that could possibly be tasked to a duty other than combat. For the duration this action is active you are able to extinguish the fire and 1 damage from fire within one turn instead of two. Again this give you a temporary insurance policy and I think would provide a great deal of satisfaction if played at the correct time to have it pay off (I think 3 turn duration is plenty to get you through an engagement). In my opinion it could also be played to repair one fire damage....in the event it is not active at the time that fire damage is taken. This idea is totally stream of consciousness as I type so there are bound to be holes in my current line of thought and I encourage anyone to extrapolate on the idea if they deem it has merit. I think it could be a fun house rule and after thinking through this a little I may even adopt it myself. Having experienced my first ship fire today I would (and I am sure everyone else would) love the ability to mitigate roasting some marshmallows on board. Even if it is just fredmiracle and I that want to pursue flushing this idea out I am reporting for duty. I may even design the new action icon if there is enough interest.

[Andy Blozinski]

You're really making this too complicated. Here's the house rule I use:
Turn 1 You receive the fire damage chit
Turn 2 You receive (1) hull damage. You expend a crew action to start extinguishing the fire. They get it under control, but not put out.
Turn 3 You do not receive fire damage because they have it under control at this time. You expend a crew action and put the fire out. If you skip the second crew action, it immediately goes out of control and causes damage again.

This limits a fire to (1) automatic hull damage. Double fires are still pretty scary. You still take (4) automatic hull damage if you got them the same turn or (3) if you got them in successive turns.

[Jack Tar]

I like it...as I said, I was just typing as fast as I could while I had the thought. I'd agree that my idea would just further bloat the rules after reading your post, your way is much better.

[Comte de Brueys]

If I'm expecting cannon fire from an enemy ship and have an action leftover I plan a fire extinguish action in advance.

(It's possible I saw this in the optional rules)

If there is a fire on board (after shooting), the action marker stays on your ship mat and you can begin to extinguish the fire the next turn.

If there is no fire damage, I simply dicard the acion marker.


It's like your Captain hold back crew manpower to fight fire on board.

[spiessbuerger]

If I'm expecting cannon fire from an enemy ship and have an action leftover I plan a fire extinguish action in advance.

(It's possible I saw this in the optional rules)

If there is a fire on board (after shooting), the action marker stays on your ship mat and you can begin to extinguish the fire the next turn.

If there is no fire damage, I simply dicard the acion marker.

It's like your Captain hold back crew manpower to fight fire on board.

...this sounds logical for me.

But I also like the idea of Andy, because it causes only one hull-box if you start to extinguish the fire

[Comte de Brueys]

...but Andy's rule is a house rule. :wink:

It cancels out a lot of the drama if your ship starts burning in midst of combat.

(in my opinion)

[Andy Blozinski]

...but Andy's rule is a house rule. :wink:

It cancels out a lot of the drama if your ship starts burning in midst of combat.

(in my opinion)
In every game I've run at cons and at home EVERYONE has agreed it was much better that fires only resulted in one automatic damage if you could catch them in time. Getting double fires is drama enough and that has happened more than once.

[Gotham Resident]

After my initial read of the rules, and without actually playing anything yet (:shock: :question:), my interpretation was that you could expend the action in advance like Sven & Fred suggested. Again, I read them once yesterday. It seems like the rules stated you could plan anything, but if they are "illegal" ie, cannot be executed, then you "wasted" your action.

If I am wrong, then Andy's house rule makes some sense, but I'd have to actually play a game to see. :D

[fredmiracle]

After my initial read of the rules... my interpretation was that you could expend the action in advance like Sven & Fred suggested. Again, I read them once yesterday. It seems like the rules stated you could plan anything, but if they are "illegal" ie, cannot be executed, then you "wasted" your action.

Yes I agree--the Rules-As-Written on page 29 make it pretty clear that you cannot pre-plan an extinguish operation when there is no fire. I do it strictly as my own house-rule. Andy's house-rule proposal seems solid too.

[Herkybird]

In my 'Powder Monkey' solo rules, the playing of an extinguish fire or pump water action is limited to when the ship actually has that damage.

Thanks for the clarification, I have been playing it wrong too! - I always thought when you get a fire damage hit chit, that was played in order from the highest damage to the lowest, and when placed on the damage track, it filled the rest of the box, then caused further damage at the start of the next turn too.

PS: I put a fire special damage in a box destroyed in a speading fire.

Which solo rules were you using, by the way? :question:

[fredmiracle]

OK, on a somewhat related topic, here's one thing that bothers me out of proportion to its significance (happens on some ships, like HMS Terpsichore).

You are already damaged, and then take a hit which reduces you to two empty hull boxes and introduces a leak.

This leaves you with two crew actions. OK, there is still hope! If you pump and repair, you might be able to save the ship.

BUT, you take the leak damage marker at the BEGINNING of the turn before planning. This reduces you from two to one crew action. So now if you repair the leak, you sink. You can only pump helplessly until you are destroyed.

It seems cruel and unusual punishment that a leak can auto-kill a ship with two empty hull boxes and (should be) two crew actions...

[Herkybird]

Maybe you could use a 'House Rule' we have used, namely, have Actions based on the crew track alone, this seems to solve this problem - we never bother with grape shot! :takecover:

[Bos'n]

:salute:
I think you've got it



No actual fire damage on turn 1. It happens at the beginning of turn 2, before planning, just as you have indicated

I guess it doesn't matter, but I've been using fire special damage markers. It seems logical

yep

One other potential question is whether you can plan an extinguish action when there is no fire (i.e. on turn one in your example), as a preventative measure, so as to be able to put the fire out at the end of turn 2. Strictly interpreted, the rules seem to exclude this possibility. But I've been allowing this as a house rule.

I thought it was common for sailors to station buckets of sand and water around the ship during a battle. They may have had people who had a job to extinguish fire. Why not if you have the space in your action track.

Bob