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[kj1225]

Will you remind us which side is the difficulty and which is the roll? It get's a bit confusing.

[Sirus]

Pretty sure the roll is on the left. We're trying to get less than the number on the right, which appears to be our skill level.

[kj1225]

I thought it was on the right before.

[ShadowHammer]

dive for the ship

{ROLL}
You dive for the ship and your knives dig into the side of the hull, but as soon as the est of your body hits the ship, the weak and rotted wooden planks splinter apart, and you fall into the water.

Wait. What? That's not how...

*pulls up MS Paint and starts drawing*

Okay, I think this is a decent explanation of what I'm trying to say. I'm sorry if I'm being unnecessarily argumentative and/or if this sounds sarcastic.

Spoiler: Figure 1: The Orc, immediately before impact with the ship (click to show/hide)

In this figure, the orc is flying towards the side of the ship. He has quite a lot of forward momentum, considering the fact that he is 260 pounds and has just jumped forward 15 feet.

Spoiler: Figure 2: What apparently happened when the Orc made contact with the ship (click to show/hide)

In this figure, the Orc has made contact with the side of the boat. Upon impact he transferred all of his forward momentum into the side of the ship, placing the hull planks under sufficient stress to break apart, but leaving himself with no forward force, causing him to fall into the sea.

Spoiler: Figure 3: What should have happened when the Orc made contact with the ship (click to show/hide)

In this figure, the Orc has just made contact with the side of the boat. He transferred some of his forward momentum into the side of the ship, but he also retained enough force to continue moving forward, causing him to fall into the boat's hold.

Unless, of course, you're saying that he fell into the hold and the planks on the bottom of the ship broke, causing him to fall through. In that case...

Spoiler: Figure 4: The Orc impacts the bottom of the ship after having broken through the side (click to show/hide)

In this figure, the Orc has already impacted the side, and has broken through it to fall towards the bottom of the boat. The planks in the bottom could be just as rotten as the ones composing the side, but there are several reasons why they would not break.
Firstly, much of the Orc's force was already dispersed by contact with the side of the boat, leaving far less to be transferred to the planks at the bottom.
Secondly, on the bottom of a boat, there is a keel. The keel is the main support structure of the boat's frame, and thus the closer the force was applied to the keel, the less likely it would be to break through.
Thirdly, the Orc was diving forward, not down, so the force on the side of the ship was directed straight into the planks, rather than at a very shallow angle, as the force to the bottom would be. The shallow angle would reduce the force exerted on each individual plank, by spreading the force over a larger area. The downside of this would be that skidding across a rotting wood floor tends to be painful.
Lastly, the pressure exerted by the water on the hull would be directly opposed to the force exerted by the Orc's impact, and therefore would help the hull resist the force of the impact.

If anyone sees a flaw in my arguments, please point it out.

[AlleeCat]

You seem to be assuming you were flying straight forward. You were jumping in an arc and caught the ship at the end of said arc, meaning you had more downward momentum than forward. Your body wasn't the thing breaking the planks, it was all of the downward force on the only two points holding your weight. plus, you were trying to hook onto the side of the bow, which is slanted inwards, meaning the force pulled the planks down and out.

Spoiler: Dumb Diagram (click to show/hide)

[AlleeCat]

Pretty sure the roll is on the left. We're trying to get less than the number on the right, which appears to be our skill level.

This is the case. Would everyone prefer if I did it like this?
Sharpshooter(9): 5
or
Sharpshooter(9): 2d6(5)

[kj1225]

The first one is perfect.

[Sirus]

I understood it just fine before, but let's go with that first one for ease of readability.

[Sarrak]

I understood it just fine before, but let's go with that first one for ease of readability.

It was understandible, sure, but sometimes - not overly so. First variant would be perfect.

-snip-

I don't think it would be possible to tear through planks as you depict it, even putting aside flying conditions mentioned by GM. Hull of the ship, even such an ancient one, isn't made of dust (despite that it appears so). You could have possibly dived into ship like into water, hands-first, arms-head-torso-legs following. It would surely hurt your hands, but you'll get there if arc is good enough - momentum will carry you through a hole made by fists.
Instead, you just slammed ship hull with all of your body. While devastating to "dustwood", it slowed down momentum and you fell into water after damaging it. Tried to hold onto with a knife, but, with a previous impact, it was impossible for hull to hold you.

[Sirus]

Don't forget that there is possibly a plot reason for not getting onto the boat yet. I do remember something in the handbook about the GM having discretion in such matters as autofailing or autosucceeding if the story depends on it.

[AlleeCat]

I'm going to spoil something for you: I don't want you on the boat, but I decided that if you got a 2 on the roll, that you could actually make it onto the ship. You didn't get a 2, so you didn't make it. I'm not going to argue about physics anymore. If you want me to rewrite it so that you miss the ship entirely, then fine, but the end result is still that you are in the water. Plus, I'm saving your ass because there is something you do not want to fight at this point, below the deck of that ship.

[ShadowHammer]

I'm going to spoil something for you: I don't want you on the boat, but I decided that if you got a 2 on the roll, that you could actually make it onto the ship. You didn't get a 2, so you didn't make it. I'm not going to argue about physics anymore. If you want me to rewrite it so that you miss the ship entirely, then fine, but the end result is still that you are in the water. Plus, I'm saving your ass because there is something you do not want to fight at this point, below the deck of that ship.

Okay. No need to rewrite it. I apologize for being overly argumentative.

[kj1225]

I say that it should have beem retconned to work if just so it would be a learning experience.

[AlleeCat]

Waiting on Dwarmin so I can get this next turn going.

[sjm9876]

Bump, in case Dwarmin sees. Otherwise, have you given him a PM prod?