Have you considered?
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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.
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Craftsmanship is also highly valued on a boat…
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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.
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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.
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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.
These are all problems humans already have and try to get around. A few adventurous and entrepreneurial dwarves is all it would take to kick start the golden age dwarven naval empire.
I am looking at this from a fun world building viewpoint and I find this idea exciting.
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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.
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I am a dwarf and I’m sailing a ship
Saily saily ship
Saily saily ship
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Ah like in Warcraft 2 you can have submarines with dwarves
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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.
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What is this, dwarves for giants? Those fuckers are at least 5m tall, goddamn.
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I’m deeply disappointed you didn’t take the chance to go with “Ditch the caves, hit the waves!”
Ditch the earth, hit the surf!
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Get out of the tunnel and swab the gunnel!
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Ran a Pirate campaign once. Had a pirate faction of Dwarfs called the Reefbeards.
They lived up, under and along the water for so long, they had colorful corals growing in their beards.
They also had a lot of cool technology, so they shot grapplehooks to swing over and ran around with entire cannons on their back.
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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)
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Splittermond, a German RPG, has a culture of arctic viking dwarves. It’s perfect.
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Dex is valuable for tall ships, but steamships and ironclads, str/con is the way to go.
tall ships are a hate crime to dwarves
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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.
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
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One of my favorite campaigns I was a tempest cleric dwarf in a sea campaign. She came from a clan of dwarves that would take longboats along river coasts downstream from a mother clan’s mountain mining to find pockets of washed down minerals. It was so fun and eventually she started her own seafaring clan the Sundersalt. We were based on an island but controlled a lot of trade in the area with ships modeled after Korean turtle ships
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The copper dwarves are excellent sailors.
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Get out of the tunnel and swab the gunnel!
Get off that rock, we’re about to undock!
