Weather and Fortune

Since our last Vikings & Valkyries game, I have been thinking about the random weather table, the given sailing speeds, and the sailing rules in general (Mazes & Minotaurs Player's Manual, pp42-43). I have read several takes on randomly determining weather (Talysman, LS, and Brendan) and decided to use the 2d6 reaction table for that, because (1) it eliminates the use of d10s (except for the morale rules - but I will get to that) and (2) I can easily roll 3d6 together, two for the weather, one for random encounters. Anyway, the revised table is below:

2d6	Weather	Speed
2	Calm	20 miles
3-5	Pleasant Breeze	40 miles
6-8	Average	60 miles
9-11	Strong Gale	80 miles
12	Storm	2d6 x 10 miles

Last session I also had to improvise a way of determining a ship's Fortune modifier and ultimately settled on the following formula: 1d4 minus 1d4 (thus 62.5% of ships have a non-negative Fortune modifier). The only drawback of this that I can see is that it introduces the use of d4s, whereas it is my intention to use d6s and d20s wherever possible.

An alternate approach that popped into my mind was to use 3d6 and the traditional B/X modifiers to determine a ship's Fortune; I dislike it for two reasons: (1) the arrangement of modifiers in V&V resembles 3E not B/X and (2) non-zero modifiers would be much less common which, concerning the frequency of acquiring a boat, would make Fortune much less relevant.

I am not pleased with the official rules regarding Storms and Drowning whatsoever; in time, I will surely propose my own variant rules for those situations.