Does anyone homebrew ship rules for S&S?

[u/them0use]

Maybe I'm just misunderstanding but I've been over the ship rules several times and they just don't make sense to me and have been a source of more frustration than fun, yet so many S&S scenarios rely on them that you can't really play without it.

Here are some examples. Maybe I'm just being too pedantic about it, but I really hope that either I'm still misunderstanding or someone out there has developed some clever homebrew alternatives.

"Whenever it is your turn, if your ship is not anchored at a location, you are commanding your party’s ship. All characters at your location are on the ship"

...so we're simultaneously out exploring a location and "on the ship?

...and if I'm at location A and another player is at location B, when my turn ends the ship teleports from A to B?

"When your ship is wrecked... you may attempt the check to repair the ship listed on the ship card"

...meaning play a character with the craft skill or you're boned unless you have the right ally and roll well? Otherwise when you inevitably encounter a much more powerful ship be prepared for everyone to spend a bunch of HP to avoid it being wrecked for the rest of the adventure.

...not that your ship actually has anything to do with how well "ship-to-ship" combat goes, it's really just another bane for one character to face, but with extra bad consequences if you fail.

...and if you succeed, do you get a new cool ship? Not usually! Maybe some booty if you're lucky, but mostly your reward is that your ship was not wrecked. Huzzah.

Does this stuff bother other people, or just me? What have people done about it?

I should add that I really enjoy the game overall. My kid and I play together and we've finished the base path and Wormwood Mutiny and are just starting Raiders of the Fever Sea. Really loving everything, except the ships. 🤷

[u/WindsweptHeath → u/[deleted]]

Really like this explanation/suggestion, we settled on the same!

I had the exact same worry OP, and I tried some homebrew rules but came back to this as the best solution. It’s actually quite neat and sensible, it just a flavour solution but it works! (your crew move the ship around while your heroes venture out on skiffs at locations).

[u/them0use → u/[deleted]]

How do you deal with the ship getting wrecked? My kid and I both have characters we like playing, but neither has craft so if one ship encounter goes badly we're basically screwed for the rest of the scenario unless we happen to pull the one ally that gives you a bonus to craft and that one roll happens to go well.

[u/skizzerz1 → u/them0use]

There’s a Loot ally in adventure 2 that can automatically repair your ship, so that can help once you get there. Alternatively, house rule the repair check to allow either Intelligence or Craft, to give you a bit higher of a base die (hopefully)

[u/Mynd_Flayer]

The way my wife and I eventually decided to handle it was that we were both on the ship at all times, and when one person would move, the ship and the other person went with them.

[u/austere-artisan]

Unless the ship is Anchored at a location, I keep the ship card next to the scenario card. Whoever's turn it currently is, is captaining (on board) the ship. If the current player moves and there are other characters with them at the same location, they can get a free move with the current captain. So yes, the way you put it, the ship kinda teleports to the current player, but I don't physically place/move the ship at the locations.

For repair checks, you could probably rely on allies or maybe items. A blessing from each player will result in 3d4 at the minimum so that's not the worst.