Before I make this suggestion, let's talk about the Pirate's Code. I had this idea to suggest, but thought it might be something frowned upon among pirates. So I thought I'd do some research first. I came across this thread on the boards:
I assume that all of us from The Shackles would have grown up knowing this, and Marnir as an Ulfen pirate probably knows similar. Lots of good stuff there.
And the thing I was concerned about suggesting is not even mentioned, so I'll throw it out there. Could we attempt to recruit from Pegsworthy's crew, or is that taboo? Maybe someone would want the chance to shine in a smaller crew?
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Thanks for the Pirate Code post. My interpretation is that we CAN attempt to seduce Pegsworthy's crew...our honor, in the name of Besmara, is simple - we do what we do to enrich ourselves (and the Pirate Queen) without besmirching Her and her code. It's simple - prepare to fight, but spare the weak and punish the cowards.
*Pretty sure I contradicted myself a few times above. LOL
Wait, i thought i was the navigator?
You could attempt to seduce Pegsworthy's crew, if you don't mind pissing off your first pirate ally, someone with 4 ships to your one.
It's done, but it's really cheap.
The Pirate's Code is a good suggestion, thanks Kung. I suspect all of us, one way or another, have a working knowledge of pirate customs, so there shouldn't be much issue implementing it.
As for recruiting from Captain Pegsworthy's crew - we're really small fish in a really big pond, and we've got exactly one ally at present. Let's not piss him off, eh?
With regards crew positions, Kyra could probably serve as a good sailing master (mistress?). I know traditionally they served as navigators, but Jane can navigate and we need someone with a good knowledge of how to set sails and rigging, and someone to take charge of ensuring that all the ropes, pulleys and sails are well maintained. I'd wager Kyra has more experience of that sort that the rest of us.
Still waiting for the ships name before we can move on.
We seem to be dithering with the name a little, mainly I suspect because we all want out ship to be named something cool.
Anything too specific might put people off, but I think we should have a distinctive name that represents us as a crew of press-ganged former mutineers who threw off their shackles to forge their own path.
How about the Unbound Drake or Unbound Fury? I think they capture both the above ideals and the suggestions so far from myself and Kung.
As long as it's not something like Boaty McBoatface.
The Hateful Jewel
The Cacophonous Rose
The Hateful Damned
The Lust of the Rambler
The Disgraced Murderer
The Broken Pillager
The Uncultured Wolf
The Silent Grail
The Cacophonous Horror
The Horrid Delivery
The Cour Terror
The Greedy Sea Rovers
The Grief of the Night
The Red Scream
The Hellish Cutlass
The Pirates Deceit
The Discourteous Delivery
The Golden Curse
The Pirates Manta
The Hateful Sun
The Murderous Deceit
The Evil Valiant
The Deceit of Delivery
The Barbaric Killers
The Flying Dragon
The Last Buccaneers
The Death of James
The Disgrace of the Servants
The Rancid Slave
The Sanguine Damned
Guess who found a Pirate ship name generator?
I like 'the Unbound Drake'.
BTW, I'll be out all day so I won't be able to post until later this evening/night.
shuffles in dismay, no one likes the names I suggested. :p
The Uncultured Wolf
That's two for the 'Unbound Drake'. Waiting on the lush and Kung.
"Unbound Drake is good. Drake is dragon, right? Better than 'linnorn' - that's a silly name."
Sounds like we've made a decision. Better get Rickety to make us a name plate, and maybe a dragon figurehead.
Hey guys, would you mind if I use a room, B11, for a navigation/alchemy room? This way we will be able to keep maps/charts as well as alchemic items/potions all in the same place.
Jane, I have no problem with your use of that room. There aren't any room descriptions on the map, so it seems like we can make our own path.
Looking at the layout, here's what I see:
B1: Upper Deck
B2: (not on map, probably Forecastle?)
B3: (not on map, maybe Crow's Nest?)
B4: (not on map, probably Sterncastle?)
B5: Lifeboats
B6: Officer's Quarters
B6a: Storage
B7: Captain's Quarters
B7a: Storage
B8: Upper Hold
B9: Crew Quarters
B10: Galley
B11: Navigation/Alchemy
B12: Lower Hold, front
B13: Lower Hold, rear
The file needs to be renamed though. The Man's Promise doesn't exist anymore. :)
Also, I'd like to propose that Kung be an extension of "party loot" when it comes to weapons. If a (non-mundane) weapon hasn't been claimed or sold, we consider it to be currently in Kung's possession, and also pretty much always available to be sold as party loot. So, as long as we haven't sold it *yet* he carries anything. Right now, that means the +1 Morningstar. If we ever decide that it's useful to someone else, it's theirs; if we ever need the money, we'll sell it. But as long as it's "somewhere" on this ship, Kung's got it.
All sounds very reasonable to me. I like how big my quarters are! But we should also make sure there's enough furniture in there for senior crew meetings and for receiving guests.
Having Kung as a walking golf-bag of weapons sounds like a good plan.
OK. New map in the S&S folder. Title South fever sea. Shows where you are and where the ports I named are.
Motaku isle is the large isle NW of your position with the city of Quent on it. That is in the Shackles so not really where you want to be right now. South of Motaku is where Tidewater rock lies.
Blood cove is east of you, Senghor is SE. Crown cove is the longest to reach around in Desperation bay.
Seriously guys, get more crew first. Free advice from someone who has played this module before, you'll chew through crew scarily fast.
BTW Marnir, notice how they were discussing where to go without you? That's mutiny talk that is!
Thanks GM, great map and helpful advice.
Let's take a trip due south to Senghor then. I'd rather have started with a trip to Crown Cove, but that looks an awful long way.
I see myself as more of a figurehead captain, if people want to discuss plans without me, that's fine. So long as they're not planning my death, obviously!
Where's the fun in that? Pick one at random and have them flogged to death. Start the bloody reign of Marnir the Merciless!
Ssh, I haven't lulled them into enough false security yet! I was waiting until we were days out at sea!
Paying the crew happens when we sell plunder; reference in the spoiler at the top:
Unlike many other NPC hirelings, pirate crews do not have a daily wage. Instead, they are paid shares of the ship’s plunder taken in acts of piracy, when that plunder is sold. Rather than try to recreate the complexity of share amounts for historical pirate crews, the PCs should simply deduct 1 point of plunder from their total each time they attempt to sell plunder. This represents the shares of the plunder paid out to the crew, regardless of the actual amount of gold received for its sale.
And I think we agreed to take equal shares among officers, including the Captain, though the Pirate Code link at the top of this page spells out a detailed breakdown of shares by position. If we take equal shares amongst ourselves, we may still want to give the perception that the Captain takes a higher share.
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Thanks, Kung. So right now we have zero plunder, as we had divided a share up back at Rickety's, and we had given Rickety one share to help pay for the squibbing, I believe. Please advise if I am wrong on that (I will track plunder on the party loot sheet - I also deleted the +1 morning star as Kung has it now).
@DBH: I cobbled together some stats on the Unbound Drake using the "Sailing Ship" entry from the Player's Guide and what you've described on these boards. Does this look right to you?
Unbound Drake
Sailing Ship, 3 Masted
Colossal
Squares: 4 (30 ft. by 105 ft.)
Cost: 10,000 gp
Defense
AC: 2; Hardness: 5
hp: 1620 (Sails 360)
Base Save: +6
Offense
Maximum Speed: 90 ft (wind)
Acceleration: 30 ft
CMB: +8; CMD: 18
Ramming Damage: 8d8
Weapons
Forecastle port: Ballista, light (3d8, 19-20/x2, 120 ft, P, large, direct-fire, Crew 1, Aim 0, Load 2) Ranged attack roll, proficiency (siege engines)
Forecastle starboard: Ballista, light (3d8, 19-20/x2, 120 ft, P, large, direct-fire, Crew 1, Aim 0, Load 2) Ranged attack roll, proficiency (siege engines)
Port: Up to 10 large direct-fire or up to 3 huge direct-fire
Starboard: Up to 10 large direct-fire or up to 3 huge direct-fire
Sterncastle: Up to 2 large or 1 huge direct or indirect-fire
Statistics
Propulsion: wind or current
Sailing Check: Profession (sailor)
Control Device: steering wheel
Means of Propulsion: 90 squares of sails (three mast)
Crew required: 20; Current crew: 18 (-10 to Sailing Check)
Decks: 3
Cargo/Passengers: 150 tons/120 passengers
Crew
Current Crew: 18
Required for Sailing: 20 (-10 penalty to Sailing Checks if under 20 down to half crew)
Minimum crew for ballistae: 1 (2 rounds to load, 1 round to fire at -2 penalty)
Optimal crew for ballistae: 4 (1 round to load and fire with no penalty: 2 load + 1 crew +1 negate size penalty)
So, a couple of questions. Regarding crew, we have 18 excluding 5 PC officers. Should the PC officers be included in the crew count as regarding operating the ship and/or its weapons?
In a combat scenario, our (Marnir's) Sailing check is a Profession (sailor) check vs. DC 20. From 10-20 crew, that check takes a -10 penalty. Practically impossible (though not completely; Marnir has an impressive +11 and someone can aid another for an additional +2).
So if crew = 23 (18+officers), we're golden (though, we still want to crew up to be better with weapons and to survive attrition).
If crew = 18 (i.e. officers don't count), we'll want to assign 4 crew to each ballista in combat. The sailing check penalty is the same for 10 crew or 18, so we might as well get the most out of our weapons as we can.
I'm assuming since Red Mary is our gunner, she's got exotic weapon proficiency for a siege engine or two? Does she have any other skills or feats related to that?
One of us, if not more, should look into exotic weapon proficiency in a siege engine, and perhaps the Siege Engineer feat line. Jane, this could be a good fit for you; siege engines are based on ranged attacks (direct-fire) or a targeting check based on knowledge engineering or intelligence (indirect-fire). As an alchemist, you could build some of the cooler ammo.
I'm happy for it to look as though I'm getting a bigger share to the crew, but seeing as the treasure will be divided up behind closed doors then it's easy for us to make sure we're all getting an equal division.
Good work on the ship's stats Kung! GM, if that's correct could we get that added as a link at the top of the page? I don't know if we need to reference it at any point but it'd be nice to be able to keep the ship's "character sheet" up to date.
I don't see that we couldn't add the PCs to the crew numbers. I don't know if I don't count as I'm doing the Sailing check, but I see no reason why everyone else shouldn't contribute to total crew numbers as it doesn't seem to divide people up by jobs - it just looks at total number.
Jena and Mary are now in the S&S docs.
Mary has two Exotic weapon profs - Light Balista and standard catapult. Plus Far shot & Point blank shot. She will be taking Cannon as an Exotic as soon as she can. :)
Very nice work on the Unbound Drake stats thanks Kung.
Day to day work, with the officers joining in the ships work isn't suffering. It's when you hit combat and the officers have to perform their duties elsewhere that handling will suffer.
And I've pirated Kung's hard work, the stats for the Drake are now in the S&S docs, and also the link is up top for you to use.
With a range of 50-100' I thought the stern seemed best for the springal; that seems to be a good distance to target a landing zone for a boarding party on either side of the ship. It would also be able to cover our own deck if things don't go our way. Unless I'm misreading the stats (Range: 100' (50' minimum)), the stern seems like the perfect location.
The Player's Guide seems to say that while you can have direct or indirect-fire weapons at the fore or sterncastles, you can only have direct-fire siege engines on the deck.
So, fully equipped, we'd have a bank of 5 ballistae (or cannon, greedy lady; what, you think we're rich?) to each side of a boarding ramp, each picking off individual targets, while the springal rains arrows that land in a 15' burst at the end of our boarding ramp, clearing their deck so we can charge in.
You probably don't want cannon at all, or at best a few kept for defense not offense. Ships themselves are valuable prizes, so damaging it severely is counter productive.
Mary is trained at using Balista and catapults to wreck sails and clear enemy sailors. Aside from targeting opposition seige weapons and perhaps rudders and wheels, medieval seige weapons really can't damage a ship fast enough to sink it. Which is why boarding is the main way of dealing with opposing ships at the moment. Magic and cannon can change that though.
I missed that information on only direct fire weapons being mounted on deck. In which case the springal would be mounted to fire on the enemy crew as you come alongside. Probably the stern would be best as you stated considering the time it takes to setup a seige weapon.
As I said, in a chase Mary would be using the ballista to wreck the enemy sails, slowing them down for you to close and board.
I can't move my icon.
Also, do you want actions for surprise round and Round 1 or will you act after the surprise round?
I can't move my icon either, have requested edit access.
Yup ,my mistake, you all have edit access now. I forgot I need to do that every time.
Experimenting with how to change my stats in combat with rage and things. I'd do the strikethrough thing like Kung, but I post a lot from my iPad and it's hard enough adding BBcode in the main text boxes, let alone in the tiny boxes for the displayed stats. Is it clear enough just appending - or + to my stats?
It's perfectly clear to me.
Marnir, if you click through to my profile, you'll see that I prepare that statblock in advance. Sometimes it still needs editing when you throw an inspiring song on top haha, but it makes it simple to just copy paste from my profile into the right place in the statblock.
While I would love to take full credit for my previous combo... I wasn't planning it at any point... and it just sorta fell into place.
Sorry guys, not feeling too well. Back to posting tomorrow.
Not a problem, hope you feel better soon.
Just wondering... When did the ship catch fire?
It was on fire when you got there.
Ah, thought I set it on fire. :3
In addition to the weapons that Kung has already requested, Kung likes the following improvements:
. . Broad Rudder (500 gp is a cheap improvement for a nice bonus)
. . Ram (1000 gp for a collosal ship like ours)
. . Rapid-Deploy Sails (10% = 1000 gp)
. . Silk Sails (15% = 1500 gp)
. . Smuggling Compartments (at least one more as 2 = 1 plunder)
Long-term, a Movable Deck might be nice, but that's going to be pricey (40% = 4000 gp); I'd rather get more weaponry now and add that later.
In order to keep the crew happy, we have to give them the 1 unit of plunder, correct? Which leaves the 5000 gp from the sale of the Famished Mane as our budget, assuming we don't spend it on ourselves.
Kung proposes this:
. . 1000 gp springal (sterncastle)
. . 1100 gp 2x catapults (forecastle)
. . 500 gp Broad rudder
. . 1500 gp Silk sails
. . 500 gp Smuggling compartment
. . 100 gp Corvus (spring-loaded)
___________
. . 4700 gp Total
I'm all for improving the ship, especially with things like silk sails and a broad rudder that are going to help me pilot, but we shouldn't neglect out personal needs too. We're 4th level now, and we need to make sure we're improving ourselves with our money as well as the ship. I'm still carrying a basic weapon, no-one has a cloak of resistance, there's not much magic armour in the party.
It's all very well having a bad-ass ship, but for we can't back it up when we eventually get to boarding then we're not going to be pirates for long.
You raise a good point about your gear Marnir. As someone who has played through this AP I'd advise you to do the ship first. This section is for you to go pirating, learn the trade. Earn some infamy and disrepute.
Having a good ship will let you catch other ships and earn money to upgrade yourself. There are plenty of prizes awaiting you out there.