On the other hand... most naval sourcebooks for D&D 3.x outfit their ships with both catapults and ballista's (those being the only two standard siege engines in the DMG).

If we do wind up having to wait until SiegeWorks until we get catapults and ballistas... it would be *really* nice for the D&D crowd to make sure they at least fit on your ship design!

(Oh, and plese, please allow for ship versions both with and *without* cannon portholes.)

For what it's worth, here are the basic siege engines listed in the D&D3.5 DMG (I'll just list all of them, might come in handy for Siegeworks anyway):

[table]
[tr][td]Item[/td][td]Range Increment[/td][td]Typical Crew[/td][td]Footprint[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Catapult, heavy[/td][td]200 ft. (100 ft. minimum)[/td][td]4[/td][td]15'x15'[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Catapult, light[/td][td]150 ft. (100 ft. minimum)[/td][td]2[/td][td]10'x10'[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Ballista[/td][td]120 ft.[/td][td]1[/td][td]5'x5'[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Ram[/td][td][/td][td]10[/td][td]30' long[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Siege tower[/td][td][/td][td]20[/td][td]15'x15'[/td][/tr]
[/table]
Personally, I'm not *that* concerned about historical accuracy. I *am* concerned about getting a set that can be used for roleplaying under the standard D&D rules. So I would appreciate it if Denny & Co would at least provide siege engines of these sizes, and ships that can carry the 5'x5' ballistas and 10'x10' light catapults...

Of course, if they want to include some more historically accurate weapons as well... the more the merrier!

Yeah, it doesn't help that the DMG grossly understates the size of catapults, ballista and their crews. (Though you can get a small ballista that can fit in a 5x5 square, the others are... a tad on the small side.)  I could live with ballista, but as I said, catapults -yech!

For centuries the most common shipboard weapon for range was the bow. It is for this reason that ships developed 'castles' at fore and aft - to provide elevated firing positions.

To get an idea of how crowded ships really are watch Master & Commander: Farside of the World. And they were running with a somewhat reduced crew for purposes of the movie. With a full crew a ship that size swarms.

Ballista are the safest choice, but would not do much in the course of a sea battle. The Dark Elf bolt thrower from GW has a vertical bow which would work fairly well on shipboard. (Smaller footprint.)

The other shipboard weapon worth mentioning is the springal, which is a slap spring thwacking the rear of a whole bunch of arrows at once sending them skywards. Not very accurate, but when you have a mob of people bunched against the rails in preperation of a boarding action you don't need to be accurate.

As for magic and sailing vessels... Cannon + spells = Boom! Spells + Catapult = Crack! With the catapult only the immediate crew would be endangered. (The torsion spring in a catapult holds an amazing amount of force. If the catapult started burning the spring would let loose...) A trebuchet would simply fall to pieces. dropping its weight to the deck from whatever height it happened to be when the support burned through.

At least there are spells to protect against such things, otherwise no one would go to sea for battle at all! The catapults would have to have all that plus the stabilization spells. But aside from the stability problem even a 10x10 catapult is way too big for shipboard.

Ah well, I suspect that catapults, ballista, and trebuchet will all be in Siege Works, so even if he doen't include them in MotHS you won't have to wait long.

D20 sea and sailing books:

Seas of Blood by Mongoose. A good book, but some of the stupidest ship designs I have seen outside of a third grade classroom. (And a picture of a trebuchet that would smash itself to flinders the first time it fired.) The system does not use miniatures, so it might not be the best choice for use with TMotHS

Seafarer's Handbook by Fantasy Flight. Another good book, and the ship designs didn't send me screaming into the night. And it has some ship construction rules as well. I like Seas of Blood's ship combat system better, mostly because it ties in with the mass combat system in Quintessential Fighter but the system in Seafarer's Handbook isn't too bad either.

Neither makes any accounting for wind. (It would make ithe ship combat in SHb much more complicated, but these are sailing vessels - wind is kind of important, you know?) In Seas of Blood I handle it with a die roll at the beginning of the engagement, winner gets a bonus to his rolls for having the wind guage.

Book of the Sea a book that just came out from Mongoose, I haven't seen it yet, but I gather that it builds on the system from SoB, and is compatible with the updated mass combat system in Strongholds & Dynasties - yet another Mongoose product.

Broadsides! I don't have this one, but I gather it can handle multiple ship encounters. Going by the name it is likely to be gunpowder era.

Swashbuckling Adventures by AEG - a gunpowder era D20 game set in the same world as 7th Sea. I have found this setting a lot of fun, plus it has cannon. It borrows from a bunch of D20 license products for its system. (One of the things I  like about the D20/OGL license is that people can use other companies syestems - they don't have to reinvent the wheel every time.) Great as it's own game, not so hot for mixing with standard D&D. (But still worth getting.)

Swashbuckling Adventures and 7th Sea are the major reason I have been so interested in The Maiden.

I am likely to buy Book of the Sea pretty soon. I liked Strongholds & Dynasties and while I had problems with the ship designs in Seas of Blood I had very few problems with the ship combat system. (The wind problem being easily fixed.)

The Auld Grump, who spent way too much time studying the history of warfare... And loves the Reformation/Counter-reformation period.