Modern Dispatch 027 - Sea Rescue.pdf - D20 Modern - ItsOver9000

The Modern Dispatch

Sea Rescue

By Charles Rice

Introduction

Adventure Setup

Sea Rescue is an adventure for Modern d20 system

games. Sea Rescue pits the PCs in a race against time

to save a damaged ocean liner ﬁlled with college

students and requires that the PCs have access to a

boat fast enough to intercept the foundering ocean

liner. This adventure is designed to best suit PCs of

between 6 th and 9 th levels though by adjusting the

level of the combatants found in the adventure’s

ﬁnale the adventure can accommodate a wider range

of PC levels.

The MV Odyssey is a privately owned passenger

liner that runs a unique passenger service. The

Odyssey serves as a “university at sea”, taking

students on a journey to many places around

the world to expand their knowledge, as well as

providing comprehensive university facilities,

allowing the students to attend classes between ports

of call.

#27

Content�Manager:�

Charles�Rice,�Chris�Davis

Layout:�

Chris�Davis

Requires the use of the d20 Modern Roleplaying

Game, published by Wizards of the Coast, Inc.

d20 Modern and Wizards of the Coast are

trademarks of Wizards of the Coast, Inc. in the

United States and other countries and are used

with permission. ‘d20 System’ and the ‘d20

System’ logo are trademarks of Wizards of the

Coast, Inc. and are used according to the terms

of the d20 System License version 6.0. A copy

of this License can be found at www.wizards.

com/d20.

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The Odyssey departs from Vancouver and is slated

to call on the following ports during its “semester”

long journey: Busan, Korea; Kobe, Japan; Shanghai,

China; Hong Kong; Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam;

Madras, India; Mombasa, Kenya; Cape Town, South

Africa; Salvador, Brazil; La Guaira, Venezuela and

ﬁnally returning the students home when it calls at

Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

The Odyssey’s itinerary is slated to run from mid

January to late April.

The following information can be learned by PCs

participating in the adventure on a Research skill

check (DC 15) providing the character making the

check has access to a computer with internet access.

The DC is the same for a PC without a computer but

will take double the standard time for a Research

check.

the last engine goes the ship could be seriously blown

off course or even broach and capsize.

Since that message attempts to hail the Odyssey

have failed and a repair team (including the PCs) is

dispatched.

When the PCs arrive at the ship, at the height of

the storm, they will ﬁnd another vessel tethered to

the converted ocean liner. Any hopes that this second

vessel is another ship answering the Odyssey’s

distress call will be dashed as the PCs explore the

ship. Drug smugglers seeking to use it to move a

large amount of their product into the United States

have commandeered the Odyssey.

Complicating matters further are the fact that the

students have been crammed into two of the hallways

under armed guard. While the students outnumber

their kidnappers by over 10 to 1 a single spray of ﬁre

from the guards’ SMGs could kill dozens of students.

As if that weren’t enough, the engine troubles are

real. Several of the smugglers are down in the engine

room with the Odyssey’s real Captain and Engineer

attempting to get one or more of the engines working

again. As the storm intensiﬁes the Odyssey might

suffer the fate of her distress call, of broaching to and

capsizing in the storm.

to bring them in most cases. If the weapons are

requisitioned from an agency or the military they will

only be allowed a sidearm or two, no heavy weapons

(the SAW will have to stay at home sorry).

If the PCs have privately owned heavy weapons

(such as assault riﬂes and grenade launchers) the

game master should have the master of the boat

carrying the PCs to the Odyssey ask them to leave

such “unnecessary” weapons behind. Of course if the

PCs have their own ship and attempt the rescue as

private good Samaritans they should be allowed to

bring whatever they wish.

My kingdom for a ship

The PCs will need a ship to intercept the Odyssey

for Sea Rescue to take place. There are several

ways the game master could provide the PCs with

a ship and allow them to take part in the adventure.

The ﬁrst would be to have an organization the PCs

work for provide one. If the PCs are a member of a

military or paramilitary organization this is especially

appropriate.

Secondly a friend of the PCs that belongs to such

an organization could ask the PCs for help. Perhaps

he has no one of the proper expertise to repair the

ship or suspects trouble and wants some combat-

capable backup.

As a last resort, if the game is such that any help

from the military or coast guard would be unwelcome

by the PCs, game masters looking to run Sea Rescue

could place a relative or loved one of a PC on the

ship and simply encourage the characters to “borrow”

transportation.

Physical Details: MV Odyssey

The Odyssey is a German passenger liner converted

to serve her unique function as a mobile university.

The ship has nine fully functional classrooms, a full

library, computer lab with internet access, a student

union, snack bars, two cafeterias, swimming pool,

gymnasium and a campus store. The ship also has 6

decks of passenger space, broken up into dormitory-

style rooms containing two beds, two dressers and a

bathroom with shower.

The ship is 590 feet long and boasts a cruising

speed of 28 knots (extremely fast for a commercial

passenger liner of its size).

Running Sea Rescue

Sea Rescue poses some unique challenges to the

game master, chief among them the presence of

guns, the requirement for a ship and the difﬁculty of

mapping such a large vehicle.

Adventure Synopsis

Armed or Unarmed?

Sea Rescue starts out as ostensibly a repair mission.

Player characters tend toward the paranoid (with

good reason in this case) and may wish to bring

weapons with them. If the characters have weapons

of their own, they should certainly be allowed

Map Quests

Given the size of this adventure, a map of such a

large vessel as the Odyssey is not practical. This

could make running Sea Rescue a challenge. To aid

the game master, the following tables are provided:

The adventure begins with a distress call from the

MV Odyssey stating that the ship has run into a nasty

storm while en route to Fort Lauderdale and that three

of her engines have been blown. The Captain feels if

Sea�Rescue

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The Modern Dispatch

Searching for a particular room

If the PCs are looking for a speciﬁc place (the bridge,

the engine room, the classrooms) assume it takes

them 2-20 minutes to ﬁnd it and make their way to

that location. An intelligence check (DC 15) reduces

this time by half. If the PCs have been to the location

already assume they can ﬁnd their way back in 5

minutes or less (depending on how far away it is).

Storm Noise: The waves buffeting the sides of the

ship create a lot of noise making it difﬁcult to hear

anything happening on a different deck of the ship,

even gunﬁre. All Listen skill check DCs are increased

by +10. Also the difﬁculty of hearing something on

the next deck is double that of hearing through a solid

wall (+30). This means that hearing a gunﬁght one

deck away has a Listen skill DC of 20.

Don’t Rock the Boat: The ship underneath the

characters is quite unstable. Each round of combat

a character must make a Balance check (DC 15) or

be ﬂatfooted for that round. If a character has spent

enough time on board a ship to have “sea legs” he

may ignore this. While this is entirely the GM’s call

certain feats or abilities such as a Surface Vehicle

Operation feat or the Amphibious Warfare feat (from

Blood and Guts) should always grant a character sea

legs.

All the pirate and ship’s personnel NPCs are

considered to have their sea legs, which could put the

PCs at a serious disadvantage when ﬁghting them. If

the PCs are having a tough go of the adventure the

game master could have the storm lessen, reducing

the DC of the check or causing the PCs to not have to

make it at all.

Several locations are detailed below. These

locations should ﬁgure prominently in the adventure:

Ship Critical Room: This would include the

ship’s communication room, engine room or

bridge.

Episode 1: Cry in the Dark

The following message will be received by the PCS

(or played for the PCs when they are invited to assist

the Odyssey):

Random Search:

d8 Location

This is MV Odyssey, en route to La Guaira. We have

lost three engines in heavy storm conditions and

require immediate assistance.

Bedroom: These rooms are not safe and no

students or pirates will be found here. As ships

the size of the Odyssey are stable in almost all

conditions none of the furniture is secured and

these rooms are nightmares of sliding glass

tables, dressers and beds. Each round a PC

stays in one of the bedrooms he suffers 1-6

points of damage unless he succeeds at a Reﬂex

saving throw. Search checks are impossible in

these conditions as the contents of the room are

continually shifting.

Examining the tape: Clever PCs might decide from

the beginning there is more going on in this cryptic

message than meets the eye. Those who take the

time to do some research on the Odyssey’s crew will

ﬁnd that the crew is made up of Britons (including

the Captain), Canadians and a few Frenchmen. The

accent of the person sending the distress call was a

thick Hispanic accent.

An extremely close analysis (requiring audio

analyzing technology or a Listen check DC 25) will

reveal the sound of gunﬁre in the background.

1-2

Cafeteria/Student Union/Library/Sundries

Store: Since there are only one or two each of

these locations pick a different one each time

this result is rolled.

3-4

Hostage Hallways

Each of these rooms is packed with the hundreds of

students attending the “university at sea” cruise. One

hallway contains all the male students and one all

the female students. There are four guards watching

each hallway, armed with SMGs, 2 at each end of

the students. The vast majority of these students are

retching and in no condition to move, much less ﬁght

and they are so closely packed together that only

the ones on the outside edges could even get to their

captors.

Episode 2: Exploring the

Odyssey

Hallway: Each round the PCs move down a

long ship’s hallway there is a 50% they will

ﬁnd stairs going up or down (equal chance).

4-5

Encounter: Equal odds for encountering a

group or pirates or a group of students who

have managed to evade the pirates.

When the PCs arrive at the Odyssey they will ﬁnd

another boat tethered to the ship. This might be their

ﬁrst clue that the adventure will not merely be a ship

in distress adventure. While the PCs are on board, the

following special rules apply:

Hostage Hallways: Each of these two hallways

is crammed with hundreds of students and half

a dozen armed smugglers.

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Radio Shack

This room contains the ship’s radio (destroyed) as

well as the body of one of the pirates (the person who

made the distress call).

Combat Options: Crossﬁre

In an adventure like Sea Rescue with so many hostages in between warring parties, the fate of those

hostages when the bullets start ﬂying should become a serious issue. The following optional rule is

presented from Blood and Guts to make the PCs lives a little more difﬁcult (ok a lot more). For the battles

in the hallway, where there will be dozens of hostages within one range increment kind GMs may decree

that only 1 NPC per round be subjected to crossﬁre (if you’re one of those nice GMs).

Bridge

This room contains the smugglers’ second in

command and 3 other smugglers, watching over the

Odyssey’s ﬁrst ofﬁcer (who is currently piloting the

ship). The ﬁrst ofﬁcer knows that the captain and the

leader of the smugglers are down in the engine room

attempting to get the damaged engines working once

again.

This rule is designed to make combat a little dicer for the PCs, and a lot dicer for Ordinaries. Thus, this

rule makes hostage rescue operations particularly difﬁcult. This rule is based on an unfortunate reality of

modern combat: modern ﬁrearms have so much power, that even when they hit, they pass through targets,

ricochet off objects, pass through walls, and so forth.

Any Ordinary within one range increment of a ﬁreﬁght (based on the shortest range of any weapon

being used) has to make a Reﬂex save every round to avoid taking 1d12 Crossﬁre damage (this damage

represents that bullets can lose velocity, strike at odd angles, or that the character is being hit by a shell

casing or chunk of debris). The DC of this save is determined by the conditions of the battle, as shown on

the table below.

Engine Room

This room contains the leader of the smugglers, the

ship’s captain, 6 standard smugglers as well as the

body of the ship’s chief engineer. The chief engineer

refused to repair the engines in an attempt to force the

smugglers off the ship and has paid for his heroism

with his life.

Battle Conditions

Reﬂex DC

Two sides involved in ﬁreﬁght

Three sides involved in ﬁreﬁght

NPCs

Four or more sides involved in ﬁreﬁght

Each attack that misses its target this round

Eduardo Escobar

Eduardo Escobar is an up and coming ﬁgure in the

South American drug trade. He only needs one big

score for his small “gang” to qualify as a full-ﬂedged

Cartel and he sees the Odyssey as his ticket to taking

that step into the big time. He is a man of enormous

ambition who sees himself being a ruler behind the

scenes in Venezuela and eventually all of South

America, picking judges, police captains and even

presidents.

Each attack that is a Natural 1 this round

Init +2; Spd 25 ft; Defense 23, touch 17, ﬂatfooted 21

(+0 size, +2 Dex, +5 class, +6 equipment); BAB +6;

Grap +6; Atk +7 melee (1d6+2/19-20, Machete), or

+9 ranged (2d4+2, Skorpion); FS 5 ft by 5 ft; Reach 5

ft; SQ ; AL none; SV Fort +7, Ref +7, Will +2; AP 4;

Rep +-1; Str 10, Dex 15, Con 13, Int 12, Wis 8, Cha

14.

Occupation: Criminal (Forgery, Knowledge

[Streetwise])

Skills: Bluff +8, Climb +1, Demolitions +7,

Diplomacy +8, Drive +8, Forgery +10, Intimidate +8,

Knowledge (Business) +7, Knowledge (Streetwise)

+7, Knowledge (Tactics) +10, Survival +2

Feats: Advanced Firearms Proﬁciency, Archaic

Weapons Proﬁciency, Armor Proﬁciency (light),

Armor Proﬁciency (medium), Combat Martial Arts,

Exotic Firearms Proﬁciency (grenade launchers),

Low Proﬁle, Personal Firearms Proﬁciency, Weapon

Focus (Machete)

Talents (Strong Hero): Melee Smash, Improved

Melee Smash

Talents (Charismatic Hero): Coordinate,

Eduardo Escobar (Strong Hero 3/Charismatic

Hero 3/Soldier 3) CR 9; Medium-size humanoid;

HD 3d8+3 plus 3d6+3 plus 3d10+3; HP 51; Mas 13;

Sea�Rescue

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Inspiration

Talents (Soldier): Weapon Focus (Skorpion),

Weapon Specialization (Skorpion)

Possessions: Tactical Vest, Machete, Skorpion

Typical Smuggler Muscle (Strong Ordinary 3)

CR 3; Medium-size humanoid; HD 3d8+6; HP

20; Mas 14; Init +1; Spd 30 ft; Defense 15, touch

13, ﬂatfooted 14 (+0 size, +1 Dex, +2 class, +2

equipment); BAB +3; Grap +5; Atk +6 melee

(1d6+2/19-20, Machete), or +4 ranged (2d4+0,

Skorpion); FS 5 ft by 5 ft; Reach 5 ft; SQ ; AL none;

SV Fort +4, Ref +2, Will +2; AP 1; Rep +0; Str 15,

Dex 13, Con 14, Int 8, Wis 12, Cha 10.

Occupation: Criminal (Gamble, Knowledge

[Streetwise])

Skills: Climb +4, Craft (structural) +2, Knowledge

(Streetwise) +2, Knowledge (Tactics) +2

Feats: Archaic Weapons Proﬁciency, Armor

Proﬁciency (light), Personal Firearms Proﬁciency,

Weapon Focus

Talents (Strong Ordinary):

Possessions: Pull-up Pouch Vest, Machete,

Skorpion

Captain Ron Higgenbotham (Fast Ordinary 1/

Smart Ordinary 1) CR 2; Medium-size humanoid;

HD 1d8+0 plus 1d6+0; HP 9; Mas 10; Init +1; Spd

30 ft; Defense 14, touch 14, ﬂatfooted 13 (+0 size,

+1 Dex, +3 class); BAB +0; Grap -1; Atk -1 melee

(1d6+-1, weapon), or +1 ranged (1d6+0, weapon);

FS 5 ft by 5 ft; Reach 5 ft; SQ ; AL none; SV Fort +0,

Ref +2, Will +1; AP 1; Rep +1; Str 8, Dex 13, Con

10, Int 10, Wis 10, Cha 12.

Occupation: Blue Collar (Craft [mechanical],

Drive, Repair)

Skills: Computer Use +3, Craft (mechanical) +4,

Drive +6, Knowledge (Technology) +3, Navigate +4,

Profession +4, Repair +4

Feats: Surface Vehicle Operation (Powerboat),

Surface Vehicle Operation (Ship)

Esteban Escobar

Eduardo’s quiet, younger brother, Esteban provides

his brother with reliable, effect muscle. Completely

devoted to his brother, Esteban is, if anything even

more ruthless.

Esteban Escobar (Strong Hero 3/Soldier 3) CR 6;

Medium-size humanoid; HD 3d8+3 plus 3d10+3;

HP 37; Mas 13; Init +1; Spd 30 ft; Defense 18,

touch 15, ﬂatfooted 17 (+0 size, +1 Dex, +4 class,

+3 equipment); BAB +5; Grap +5; Atk +5 melee

(1d6+2/19-20, Machete), or +7 ranged (2d8+2, AK-

47); FS 5 ft by 5 ft; Reach 5 ft; SQ ; AL none; SV

Fort +5, Ref +4, Will +3; AP 3; Rep +0; Str 10, Dex

12, Con 13, Int 14, Wis 13, Cha 8.

Occupation: Adventurer (Drive, Pilot)

Skills: Craft (structural) +8, Demolitions +5, Drive

+10, Intimidate +2, Knowledge (Streetwise) +8,

Knowledge (Tactics) +11, Navigate +8, Pilot +7,

Survival +4

Feats: Advanced Firearms Proﬁciency, Aircraft

Operation (Helicopters), Archaic Weapons

Proﬁciency, Armor Proﬁciency (light), Helicopter

Vehicle Weapons, Personal Firearms Proﬁciency,

Surface Vehicle Operation (Powerboat)

Talents (Strong Hero): Melee Smash, Improved

Melee Smash

Talents (Soldier): Weapon Focus, Weapon

Specialization

Possessions: Undercover Vest, Machete, AK-47

First Ofﬁcer (Fast Ordinary 1) CR 1; Medium-size

humanoid; HD 1d8+0; HP 5; Mas 10; Init +1; Spd 30

ft; Defense 14, touch 14, ﬂatfooted 13 (+0 size, +1

Dex, +3 class); BAB +0; Grap -1; Atk -1 melee (by

weapon -1), or +1 ranged (by weapon); FS 5 ft by

5 ft; Reach 5 ft; SQ ; AL none; SV Fort +0, Ref +2,

Will +0; AP 0; Rep +0; Str 8, Dex 13, Con 10, Int 10,

Wis 10, Cha 12.

Occupation: Blue Collar (Craft [mechanical],

Drive, Repair)

Skills: Craft (mechanical) +4, Drive +5, Navigate

+2, Profession +4, Repair +4

Feats: Surface Vehicle Operation (Powerboat),

Surface Vehicle Operation (Ship)

Sea�Rescue

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Modern Dispatch 027 - Sea Rescue.pdf

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