Faol Mhor's Skull & Shackles Campaign
Game Master Faol Mhor

Okay Guys, here is the Discussion thread, go ahead and introduce your characters to each other and what they are trying to do or whats happened to them.

Doesn't have to be a long post.

I'll try and have the new gameplay thread up soon.

Thea, human cleric of Besmara who was raised by a halfling.

Had lost my dot, checked in on the thread and saw the link to here.

Jove Sirocco, slyph witch with his plucky sidekick familiar Zephyrus, a talking thrush. He's a perpetual stowaway on various vessels, very book smart from sneaking into libraries at different ports but is a little reckless and all the time by himself has made his Charisma low :)

He's a stowaway on the Rahadoumi ship--never been aboard the Wormwood. (My first character, Lex Sequitur, Besmara bless his soul, was killed by the two rotters in the bilges.)

Hey Thea! Glad you are still around.

Hello folks.

Four Skulls is a shoanti from distant Varisia. A people considered savage by most civilized nations. He is prone to gloom moods and seems bitter about his past but does not talk much about it.

He was already a sailor by trade when he "joined" the Wormwood and since he is aboard he has been trying to get along with the crew which does not mean he will not slit the throat of the officers in the first opportunity.

He is a bone oracle lvl 2. Btw Jove in our timeline we killed Flipps and Narval ;)

Yup, now the time lines are merging just like a strange star trek episode...in one timeline Lex was mercilessly cut down while in the other Fipps got butchered and narwhal got a rapier through his back...it was very exciting.

Anyway, we are just going to assume that Fipps and Narwhal had a busy day, they killed Lex and then got killed by the other group later in the day when they tried to off Felix.

Well the game play thread is up, but please post a bit about your character here first before heading over there.

On another note, thanks for sticking in there guys! We've been playing this game for a while now, since July. We've lost some good players along the way but I'm very happy to have you all still here.

Just as a note for future posting, especially around fights, I know life is busy, I get busy as well and cant post sometimes, but to keep it fair to those who check this game very frequently I'm going to give you guys a little while to respond with your turn in combats, but if you don't post for several days I'm going to assume your character didn't do anything that round, or I might just take your turn for you to keep things moving.

Avakor's an undine raised by a varisian. He's sailed on ships before and is a general good person, but with a desire to repay those that hurt him and his friends.

He's served as the ship's cook and had bad luck making more than a few allies.

He's a level 2 life oracle made for healing and support casting.

I am Gan Laccaran. A 25 year old Varisian Male will a strong self interested personality. I tend to be bold or reserved in a moment.

I am a Buccaneer Gunslinger and the best sailor on this ship, that's not arrogance, it is fact. I am known by some to be a coward but I like to look at it as choosing my fights.

Halfway on this voyage I volunteered to fight Plugg's brute Owlbear and won.

I am often accompanied by a small spider monkey I call Guinness Flingspoo. Until things on the ship improve however, he stays in the cabin only to be brought up on deck for fresh air every so often.

I have a reasonably friendly demeanor and usually lend a hand so long as I see a benefit for myself.

Yup that about covers it. Nice to meet you all.

Thea's physical appearance:
Age: 18 years
Height: 4'8"
Weight: 92 lbs
Hair: Strawberry Blonde and wavy, reaching to her waist.
Eyes: Emerald green

Though on the petite side, she still wasn't as small as the halfling pirate that raised her. :)

Right now she is one level of cleric and one level of rogue. Not sure which class she will take when she hits 3rd level.

Hi DM Faol.
Could you change the Hell or High Water thread to the inactive status? I keep clicking on it by accident when I try to come here. Old reflexs lol.

Thx

Stupid phone! I just clicked the x next to the gameplay thread while trying to click the link, so now I won't get new notifications. Anyone know how to reverse it? Just make a new post?

Is your real life SS party as troublemaker as we are DM Faol? Lol
This campaign seems to have a lot of high tension scenarios, I always wonder how other people solve them.

Stupid phone! I just clicked the x next to the gameplay thread while trying to click the link, so now I won't get new notifications. Anyone know how to reverse it? Just make a new post?

That just makes the new notification disappear for the current one. Any new posts will make it come back. I have used the "x" before.

Sabinae here. She is a mermaid ranger.

Hey Merck, I marked the other campaign inactive. hope that helps.

lol Merck, In my RL S&S I have a husband and wife playing, but the wife is playing a male halfling rogue who wants to assassinate things while the husband is playing a gnome gunslinger...she is a teacher in RL so it helps her get her frustration out instead of on the kids :)

Their characters are always arguing and always competing to hit on Rosie Cusswell.

Early on in the campaign her rogue got mad at one of the NPC's who turned them in for something so at night she snuk through all the other sleeping pirates and murdered him in his hammock...I looked in the book at the character and it said, "this character shows up later in the campaign so your players shouldn't have much interaction with them..."

Anyway I let her murder him, he just about was able to get a scream out but she won init and cut his throat with the second attack. I don't know what I'll do about that NPC being dead later on but I'll improvise.

Each game presents it's own challenges that's for sure :) And Gan is making this one interesting, right Gan? :)

...mostly I spent last night thinking about how I could prevent all of you from dying lol.

I like it when players do something I didn't expect them to, it keeps things interesting, but I also don't want to hold back from consequences for player action, because I want there to be a real sense of danger in the game as well.

Last night was a game I'm actually playing in, for once! and the GM had an mysterious elf we've have been trying to find show up and tell us they'll meet with us later, and then she slips away into the darkness of the night...

My character, is like "No effing way! Did she use magic? No then I'm going after her.." I try and follow the elf, we've been looking for this thing I'm not letting her get away...I chased the elf through town and tracked her up a tree in the woods. hehe.

Anyway, long story short The GM had planned to make her show up later but some lucky survival checks and some other skill checks and he had to figure out what to do next and before you know it everything's changed and orc's are burning down a forest trying to find us... :)

I love RPG's

Hi Thea.
I noticed you are a rogue/cleric, its an interresting combination. I had a character like that one and it was a blast but not many people go for it. Are you planning on picking up one of the prestigue classes that let you advance your spellcasting lvl and rogue talents?

Well, the decision to take up some melee levels occurred when I decided the party didn't need a a full cleric and a full oracle of life with an inquisitor and a witch. :)

Rogue just seemed to work best with a cleric of Besmara. I haven't decided on any prestige classes yet. Feel free to offer suggestions. :)

Hi DM Faol, I am just roleplaying Felix death or disapearance. If you prefer I can just drop the subject.

@Almathea:
My character was a temple raider of ollidamara. It was a PrC from 3.5. Complete adventure book I belive. The Pathfinder has a PrC called The Grey Gardner, check it out at d20pfsrd.com. You would have to adapt the fluff a little bit and its originally designed for the inquisitor i think but it would made a good option for a melee rogue/cleric. You can probably use it with a bow also.

Wow I screwed up horribly. Thinks weren't really all that bad as far as the game goes and I let impatience and college stress control my posts.

Now Gan is ruined and I really don't want to replace him. I want to apologize to everyone for being on edge these past few weeks. Things were just tough.

It is a neat AP. Tedious at some points but I am sure the long term payoff would have been worth the wait. And I went and ruined it. Now I have no idea what to do.

Merck it's fine, I kinda want to use Gan's maiming and Felix death as a bit of a dark point and hope they push you guys in a direction so you can continue to explore it.

Gan as for screwing up the campaign I don't think you have. It's a roleplaying game so it cant really be ruined. Gan isnt done yet he's alive, not well but he's alive. Besides whats a pirate campaign without one character without a hook for a hand? Still have your left hand so you can shot your gun. I was thinking that at first it might be at a -2 to hit but once Gan has practiced up there shouldn't be any negatives to it.

I think it's now up to the others to figure out how to get Gan out of his current situation.

oh and by the way Sabinae good to still have you around!

oh and by the way Sabinae good to still have you around!

Thanks!

Gan needed two hands for much of the things I had hoped to do with him and with all the messed up out of character decisions I have made, I have ruined the game for myself.

Can't go back on anything now as it is a tad too late for that, I just don't want to continue with this character as he is....kind of wish he had died almost, I'd make a new gunslinger if he did as that is simply the class I wish to play, but I would lose all the neat stuff Gan did along the way......not really that much to think of it.....yeah, I would have preferred he died and I simply make a new gunslinger *Shrugs*

Ultimately what I am saying is I don't like Gan. I'd like a shot at a different kind of character.... also a gunslinger but I think this one would be a pistoleer instead of a bucaneer and have a different backstory. A former Sailor of the Man's Promise.

Would that be so bad? We just say Gan is another one of Plugg's victims on the voyage and I simply take over as one of the Man's promise's sailors locked in the bilges? I have a hunch where this is going so I have a feeling I could make it work. We say, I didn't want to join Harnigan's crew because he killed the Promise's captain who was a REALLY good friend of mine or my brother or some such nonsense to get me hating on only Harnigan. So they locked me up to be sold as a slave but I'd be more willing to join the mutiny crew since their enemy is mine.I won't mind starting with no gear either if that would be the ruling. I'll come up with some back story about my life during and before the Promise raid and that'll be it. Sound good? If not it was fun playing with you all.

What I'd be trading is my gear and relationships for a new character.

Well if that's what you want to do. But I think Gan losing his hand gives him a great opportunity to develop as a character. I know that's not where you wanted to take the character but it's the outcome of the decisions and I think that's part of the fun of a roleplaying game.

I guess for me, good or bad, whatever happens to my characters is part of their story, the bad more than the good stuff gives me something to motivate and drive the character, it forces me to develop him in maybe a different direction yes but that can be fun.

I personally like Gan as a character, I mean he's brash and hot headed, very hotheaded, which gets him into trouble but I like having him in the game.

Gan has time to think in the bilges now, to think abut what he's done or hasn't done, who he's angry at and what his ultimate goals are. He could either come out of those bilges a broken man, sold into slavery or a fierce pirate out for revenge and ready to overcome his difficulties.

What I'm saying is I know that for a while you haven't been able to connect with the character, that you havn't really liked him. I'm okay with you starting a new character if that's what you feel you really want to do but I guess for me the new character has to be significantly different in attitude and character than Gan was or else its just kind of having Gan 2.0 without the downside of losing a hand. You know what I mean?

Anyway, each of us is different and we roleplay for different reasons so how I think about it and you and all the rest of us in this game think about it might be really different so I don't presume to tell anyone how to Roleplay.

I guess I'm just letting you know how I think and roleplay, and I guess that's going to come across in the campaign.

Whenever I get the chance to give your characters moments in their lives to make big decisions and have them fail or succeed I'm going to take it. I don't really want my games judged on how well you guys as the players succeed or fail, but rather on whether the characters changed and grew.

In anycase, if you do decide to create a new character here is some background info for you about the Rahadoumi.

LINK TO WIKI

This might give you some good ideas for creating a rahadoumi character if that's what you want to do.

I don't know what I want to do. I'm at a complete loss as to how to continue.

Srry i havent been around much latetly. Had a bad week at work with 12 hours shifts. I will have something up tonight, promisse.

Just letting you all know i'm still here but I still have family in town from Christmas s i've been kind of busy. Hope to be able to post soon.

Happy new yers eve guys.

Same to you. Happy new years everyone.

Okay, just wanted to let everyone know I've decided to stick with Gan. I do need to give up on Gunslinger though. Can't reload firearms with one hand unless I can train my monkey to do so......that'd be cool. Anyways, rules say I need two hands to reload and there's really no arguing the rules.

After rereading the thread a couple times I think I got a feel for Gan again so I will be able to play him.

My only disappointment is that I designed this character to try out the gunslinger class but like our GM pointed out, character growth is just as much fun as the game mechanics. Hopefully I'll get another chance to try Gunslinger.

From this point on I will be shooting for the duelist prestige class. I'll keep pistols on me cause I can still fire them so it will just be me using what I can. Still not sure what classes to take to get there but I'll make it work.

Real pirates didn't reload anyway. Carried several pistols and holstered or dropped each one as it was fired and went on to the next one. :) Maybe you can buy multiple pistols once we overthrow Plugg and Scourge :)

Also, the RAW does say you need two hands, but maybe a hook hand can fill the role of one of them. I mean, for example, two-handed firearms explicitly say one hand holds the firearm while reloading and one hand does the actual reloading. Maybe you can hold your pistol in the hook hand while actually reloading with the other? It would be clumsy, but maybe you could get so that you could reload, maybe even just out of combat, with your hook hand. Or maybe it would increase the reload time by one step. What say you, GM?

Glad to hear you're keeping Gan :) we'll have to get you a hook hand pronto ;-)

I'm amused at the picture of Gan reloading with his hook hand by using it to stab alchemical paper cartridges and inserting the thing hanging on the end of his hook hand into the gun.

'Cause nothin's better than a pirate with a hook hand, right?

I got some inspiration from the movie Hook staring Robin Williams and Dustin Hoffman. Dustin does an excellent Captain James Hook.

That he does.

you can still carry some pistols and fire them as you go before drawing a weapon.

And yeah, if you get a hook I have no problem with you holding the gun in the hook while reloading wit the left. Just at a penalty to start with which would disappear after a bit as Gan gets better at it.

Now that I think of it. Isn't Barefoot Samms like the ONLY person I've influenced. Maybe Fishguts but I was only using him hehe. Samms I was legitimately trying to befriend. She should already be on our side.....unless me getting jailed changed her mind. *Shrug* Eh just a thought.

At some point in the recent past we discussed opening recruitment for a melee type. Since now looks like the best spot for adding people was there any decision about the subject?

I've actually been having trouble with Avakor for a while. While I get his personality somewhat (I'm stretching a bit from my usual sarcastic self.), I've felt rather useless in combat. I've sort of come to the conclusion that I built him wrong for low level. Yay for dumping physicals...

I know the feeling. My RL group is playing RotRL and I built a caster heavens oracle with the haunted curse and eldritch heritage feat chain for arcane bloodline. I was completely useless until lvl 4. The only thing I could do in combat was cast a buff or cure spell and then be beaten down to negative hp. We were lacking in the melee department as a group...

The divine classes were designed with too much focus on melee. The first levels are hard if you go the caster route.

Hey guys, absent due to the purchasing of a new house...kinda fun but kinda not at the same time. Anyway first house. Should be pretty cool...and apparently a lot of work?

Okay back to it. We need to get One hand Gan back in the game here.

Hey Guys, just to let you all know where things are at. I think I'm gonna have to call it quits on this game for various reasons.

At present I just started a new job which takes a lot out of me, we just bought our first house which needs some work and my wife is pregnant and due sooner rather than later so as you can guess my situation has changed since we started this boat ride.

To keep going in the campaign we would really need to consider recruiting as Four Skulls pointed out and I just don't have the time to give that any attention or to do this game well and haven't for the last month. Rather than continue with a mediocre game I think It's just best to pull the plug.

Very sorry about this guys ending this campaign here really sucks I know. Hope you can forgive me for this. :(

If one of you wants to take over as GM let me know. I'll keep checking this thread.

I'm fully willing to take over. I'm already running a S&S game on the boards and they're at relatively the same point.

Sad to hear that, Faol, but I understand. Family and work comes first. :) Best wishes!

And thanks Avakor for stepping up :) I think Four Skulls is right, we should re-recruit and bolster our crew with 1 or 2 more people, preferably at least one melée specialist. :)

If the game is still going I'll stick around. Keep me posted. Gan's not going anywhere.

Wow, lot of changes!

Should have checked this side first before posting on the thread lol. I completetly understand Faol, real life happens to us all. No problem. Wish you the best of luck in this new chapter of your life mate.

I am enjoying this AP and this group and would like to keep playing, if you decide to take over Avakor, count Four Skulls in. What is the next step?

Hmmm... I seemed to have forgotten the well wishes. Damn, I'm a terrible person...

Faol, best wishes with the new job and additions to the family. :) I completely understand. Like was said before, family and work come first. I hope everything goes well.

Alright, first off, I'd like to have an okay from Faol. I need to send a message to the webmaster to ask for the rights to the thread be turned over, but it might just be better to start again. Asking isn't hard, I've had to do it once already. Any thoughts on that?

Secondly, I'll need to post in the recruitment forum. We've got a Bones Oracle, a one-handed Buccaneer Gunslinger, and Witch, which means that we need at least one melee heavy. What is the group size preference for everyone. I typically favor groups in the 5-6 range, with 3 being my typical minimum and 8 being my typical maximum.

Also, I'd like to ask if the rules laid out in the beginning of the game are what everyone prefers to hold to. I know that I tend to do Hit Point gain per level slightly differently (only slightly). Are there other rules that people want to use?

Finally, if anyone wants to change characters or rework theirs, let me know. I'm fine with people changing or modifying things, as long as it isn't frustratingly constant. I'd rather everyone play a character they enjoy.

Feel free to PM me if it's something you don't want to discuss openly on the boards.

I think I'd like about 5 players total :)

With as long as the game was to get to this point, I am not looking forward to doing it a second time unless I use a different Character.

If we continue, I will carry on with Gan.

If we restart, I bust out my Barbarian Sheamus. Used him before and I simply love him.

I have no plan to restart. We might jump back a tinsy bit in order to pull Avakor out of the lime-light, but otherwise, nothing else would change.

Edit: I see where the notion of restarting the game might've come from. I meant to imply the creation of a new campaign thread and a story continuation from where we're at currently.

In my opinion 6 is the "magic number" of players for a pbp. 5 works alright too but with less than that there are too few people posting for the story to move foward and more than 7 the game starts to be too crownded for individual character development.

I dont mind if we continue on this thread or create a new one as long as we do not reset he story. I like the relations we developed between ourselfs and the crew and how far we advanced the plot so far. It is not my wish to start from scratch again.

I agree that our party could really use a melee heavy character and also a skill-monkey. We could open recruitment for 3 people with this two archetypes in mind. Also if we find someone for main heals I do not mind doing support casting and melee. I was pretty happy with Avakor in the party :D

I am happy with the rules laid out in the beginning of the game. Having said that, since you are GMing now DM Shade if you want to change something to make the game more to your style by all means, do so.

Lastly thank you for picking up this game. I am hoping we can continue on our high seas adventure of plunder and treason.

Alright, if I don't get anymore notice, I'll be setting up a Recruitment thread tomorrow.

I'd like to go over character creation again and make sure everyone is okay with the set-up.

This is largely taken from my Shattered Star recruitment thread.

My expectations of a player:

• Able to post once daily. I understand that life gets in the way, so long as it feels like you’re posting daily, I’m good. Issues come up in my own life as well, but I’d ask that you inform me if something is coming up that is going to keep you away.

• Quality posting. I prefer not to have to root through spelling mistakes and terrible grammar. Consistent structure is a boon.

• The ability to work in a team together. I don’t mind party conflict as long as people are enjoying it. It can often add spice to the game. I’ve seen this only happen amongst people that communicate and are up for it. Which is to say, not often. Thus, I am leery of it.

• Keep talking, even if it is only in the discussion thread. Ask questions, be proactive rather than reactive. I don’t mind handling questions for things that you might even be the least little unsure about. PM me about problems, plans, goals, if you had an issue with a call I made, so on and so forth. Communication is key to me.

• Roleplaying. I love engaging others in telling stories rather than playing a skirmish game. Personally, I still feel that this is one of my weak points, and I want to have players that engage and challenge not only myself, but also the other players.

• People who are willing to do risky things. I like to reward those that try to pull off unlikely, but epic stunts. It's not about trying to do anything that comes to mind, but rather about throwing some memorable actions into play.
  

I'm using a 5 greater point buy in that game than in this one as well as an extra trait.

Let's see, what else? Hmmm... I've always liked psionics, so that's a possibility. Also, the mythic rules out are potentially interesting.

Any input? Things you want changed? Things you don't want changed?