The weather at sea can transform a sailing combat encounter. Including a weather condition is optional! It’s usually best to use only one type of inclement weather and to avoid combining it with other major complications.

Dense Fog or Rain: The normal rules for fog or rain causing concealment matter at fairly large distances. If you want extremely dense fog or rain to affect naval combat, you can create concealment at a much shorter range. Because this adds a further detriment to ranged attacks, dense fog is typically better used in boarding combat.

Winds: Strong Winds have the strongest impact on sailing combat. The default rules should mostly be reserved for flying creatures. Imposing penalties on ranged attacks is less interesting, especially when the penalties for moving vehicles are likely already hurting ranged attack accuracy.

Winds can have a greater and more interesting impact on the movement of ships. At the start of a round, tell the players the direction of any high wind, such as blowing from the northeast, and tell them how many feet it will push all ships at the end of the round (usually 5 or 10). Movement against the wind is difficult terrain, and moving with the wind moves the ship 10 feet (2 squares) each time it would move 5 feet (1 square). At the end of the round, the ships are pushed the amount you stated at the start of the fight. As the new round starts, say whether there are any changes to the wind. Typically, the wind’s direction changes no more than 45º per round, such as going from blowing from the northeast to blowing from the north.