I'd like some advice, my PCs are getting mercenary about helping Lavinia with this trip. They want her to pay them for all the passengers, and cargo. This doesn't sound too unreasonable. What would be some good prices? Colonists I don't think would have lots of money, they'd be looking to start a new life.
Should I then burden them with the cost of hiring a crew? The one PC who is playing captain doesn't want anything from Lavinia, so I imagine will want to hire and pay his own crew entirely.

Also, the cargo capacity from the SWW I think may not line up with the info in StormWrack. Where did the info (tonnage, etc) for this come from?

Thanks,

In DMG II there is an article about running a business by PCs. Since transporting passengers by ship in this context might be seen as a business, perhaps the prices in this article might give a good indication.

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Also, the cargo capacity from the SWW I think may not line up with the info in StormWrack. Where did the info (tonnage, etc) for this come from?

Thanks,

According to Stormwrack, a caravel has 120 tons of cargo space (p. 98).

According to SWW (Dungeon 141, p. 20), the Sea Wyvern - as a caravel - has 120 tons of cargo capacity:

60 tons of supplies for Farshore

60 tons for ship supplies/other stuff,
_of which_ 10 tons are ship repair supplies, and another 10 tons are food/water/miscellaneous supplies for the ship's passengers/crew, which leaves 40 tons for the PCs to use (although Avner's horse might take 10 tons out of that 40)

So that makes 80 (or 90) tons accounted for, and 40 (or 30) for the PCs to use (although Lavinia would like to use that for more colony supplies). Which equals 120 tons in total.

cthulhudarren wrote:

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Also, the cargo capacity from the SWW I think may not line up with the info in StormWrack. Where did the info (tonnage, etc) for this come from?

Thanks,

I had a problem with the math too, until I read the relevant section more carefully.

According to Stormwrack, a caravel has 120 tons of cargo space (p. 98).

According to SWW (Dungeon 141, p. 20), the Sea Wyvern - as a caravel - has 120 tons of cargo capacity:

60 tons of supplies for Farshore

60 tons for ship supplies/other stuff,
_of which_ 10 tons are ship repair supplies, and another 10 tons are food/water/miscellaneous supplies for the ship's passengers/crew, which leaves 40 tons for the PCs to use (although Avner's horse might take 10 tons out of that 40)

So that makes 80 (or 90) tons accounted for, and 40 (or 30) for the PCs to use (although Lavinia would like to use that for more colony supplies). Which equals 120 tons in total.

What do you think would be a fair price for passengers to Farshore? I laborer costs 1sp per day to hire for a ship, a ships cook about 2sp and a ships officer 5sp. Would it be fair to say 2sp per day per passenger, so 3 months worth is 180sp? It can't be too much different than pay for a sailor, except for supply/demand, of which I guess there is less supply for ships going to Farshore. Passengers with more than personal cargo would cost more.

Thanks. I just looked at it again and agree with you.

What do you think would be a fair price for passengers to Farshore? I laborer costs 1sp per day to hire for a ship, a ships cook about 2sp and a ships officer 5sp. Would it be fair to say 2sp per day per passenger, so 3 months worth is 180sp? It can't be too much different than pay for a sailor, except for supply/demand, of which I guess there is less supply for ships going to Farshore. Passengers with more than personal cargo would cost more.

According to the PHB, in the equipment chapter under Spellcasting and Services, ship's passage costs 1 sp/mile (double that for creatures that are larger than Medium or otherwise difficult to bring on board). The voyage is slated to be over 3,000 miles, which would come out to a cost of over 300 gp/passenger.

That's a steep price for regular folks (who are on the silver standard anyway, not the adventurer's gold standard). I would suggest that Lavinia has some system in place, where she subsidises all or part of the travel costs in return for a commitment to the colony of Farshore (e.g., 10 years of residence). She might also subsidise the cargo costs for bulky/heavy equipment needed by useful craftsmen/whatever.

Avner and his horse, on the other hand ... there is no reason why the PCs couldn't overcharge him for Thunderstrike's passage (i.e., more than 600 gp). Or Avner, for that matter - but then he'd better get that private cabin for himself and his servants! :)

I'm sure that some of the other STAP threads have more ideas, so take a look there too.

I couldn't find any info in the SWW from a quick skim, but here are some suggestions:

According to the PHB, in the equipment chapter under Spellcasting and Services, ship's passage costs 1 sp/mile (double that for creatures that are larger than Medium or otherwise difficult to bring on board). The voyage is slated to be over 3,000 miles, which would come out to a cost of over 300 gp/passenger.

That's a steep price for regular folks (who are on the silver standard anyway, not the adventurer's gold standard). I would suggest that Lavinia has some system in place, where she subsidises all or part of the travel costs in return for a commitment to the colony of Farshore (e.g., 10 years of residence). She might also subsidise the cargo costs for bulky/heavy equipment needed by useful craftsmen/whatever.

Thanks for that PHB price, I hadn't seen that. I completely agree that this is very expensive. My players want to keep finances independent of Lavinia, but I suppose Lavinia/Meravanchi's would be subsidizing them. That's a good bit of gold to pay the players though. I'm having around 13 passengers, that'd be about 4,000 gp. The players would have to pay their own crew, but that is pennies (2-5sp per WEEK per crewmember) compared to the income from passengers. There's gotta be a way to make the profit come waaay down, like costs for supplies and such. I wish there were more detailed rules for shipboard economies!

Or Lavinia could persuade the party to invest in Farshore themselves. That would just add that much extra personal investment (in addition to the monetary one) in the colony.

And if you're feeling really aggressive while DM'ing and happen to off a character or two during combat, well those Raise Dead spells/scrolls/components aren't exactly cheap ...

cthulhudarren wrote:

Thanks for that PHB price, I hadn't seen that. I completely agree that this is very expensive. My players want to keep finances independent of Lavinia, but I suppose Lavinia/Meravanchi's would be subsidizing them. That's a good bit of gold to pay the players though. I'm having around 13 passengers, that'd be about 4,000 gp. The players would have to pay their own crew, but that is pennies (2-5sp per WEEK per crewmember) compared to the income from passengers. There's gotta be a way to make the profit come waaay down, like costs for supplies and such. I wish there were more detailed rules for shipboard economies!

Aside from the cost of supplies, you can have the not-too-uncommon problem of shipboard vermin eating away at their food supplies (unless the party remembers to buy a cat). Another way to bleed their profits would be Rowyn's sabotage efforts - not necessarily "Oh no, the ship's about to go down!" (after all, Rowyn wants to survive too), but a constant irritant which just siphons off that much more money from the party coffers. Or how about paying "toll"/tribute to the Crimson Fleet en route to the Isle of Dread?

Or Lavinia could persuade the party to invest in Farshore themselves. That would just add that much extra personal investment (in addition to the monetary one) in the colony.

And if you're feeling really aggressive while DM'ing and happen to off a character or two during combat, well those Raise Dead spells/scrolls/components aren't exactly cheap ...

Bellona, you are awesome, I don't care with everyone says about you. ;-)
These are all great ideas, that assassin on board is gonna cause some havoc. I suppose there is no reason why I couldn't use the same exact stat block as Rowyn for the assassin.

Anyway, good luck with giving them hell on the trip. I take it that you've already looked at the ending and made your own decision as to how to handle it? There have been a couple of good threads on this board about the final storm, etc.

Anyway, good luck with giving them hell on the trip. I take it that you've already looked at the ending and made your own decision as to how to handle it? There have been a couple of good threads on this board about the final storm, etc.

I'm really excitedly planning on turning the annoying a%&%%%~ knob on Avner all the way to "11"!

If the players insist on trying to squeeze the ship economics for money, make them pay risk wages at five to ten times normal rate.

If the players insist on trying to squeeze the ship economics for money, make them pay risk wages at five to ten times normal rate.

I'm interested in how things worked/are working out for your group.

I'm interested in how things worked/are working out for your group.

There have been difficulties, they took over both pirate ships that attacked them and now have three ships (not counting the Nixie).

I knew I did not want to totally railroad the plot by forcing a wreck and overland walk to Farshore, but they ended up beaching every ship since they did not roll well. I had to engineer something to get them onto land for a while, so I borrowed Moonbeam's (Belessa's journal) DM's solution. A group of the Nixie's crew ( and some of Lavinia's personal wealth to sweeten the deal) were captured by Gargoyles and flown to a mountaintop lair. I also copied the more intricate Lavinia scenario, and my pcs will descend into the olman pyramid to have some dark mountain pass encounters that way.

My pcs will certainly from there simply wait to fix all the ships then sail to Farshore, where I'll have the first attack underway.

All working out well, if I may say so myself. I do, however, find it harder and harder to manage everything as all my PCs are powergamers and are very good tacticians.

The NPCs have all been quite lucky, with the exception of Congrad. None are confirmed dead. The pc cleric cast "Aboleth's Curse" on him and then set him free on Renkru. Urol ("Earl") is a constant companion and sometimes wise, sometimes foolish, sometimes helpful, often annoying. He lives and now owns a Terrorbird egg. Avner was as obnoxious as I could make him. They loved to hate him. He was whipped within an inch of his life of Renkru (only lesser vigor saved him) and he would have been killed for shooting that Albatross if Lavinia not agreed to take him on board her ship. He is one of the Gargoyle captives and I expect him to live to be a pain in the ass in Farshore, where I have to invent more deviltry for him to get mixed up in. Very least he will complain to uncle and have a stink raised.

Oh, and one permanent character death, and two more avoided by having "hero points". One player getting a hero point for heroism saving Conrad with surgery and then spending the hero point the same session to avoid death in Tamoachan.