Remedial Help Needed for Roguish Pirate Captain (contains Skull and Shackles spoilers)


Advice


Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

So, I'm playing a rogue in skull and shackles, the captain of the fearsome ship Nightstorm. I'm looking for advice to keep him fun to play stat wise.

We're towards the end of module 2.

Our party are as follows
Finnegan Mourn (me), dhamphir unchained rogue & captain
Squee, ratfolk gunslinger buccaneer (ref allowed as being flavour appropriate and hardly game breaking) - sailing master with maxed profession sailor.
Agathion, tiefling alchemist, whose sickening bombs do horrible things to the crew of enemy ships
Finlay, half elf druid who likes damage spells - call lightning, flurry of snowballs, snowball etc
Mr Smiley, sabretooth tiger pet of ^

The party's big plus is that all members have low light or dark vision and we all took stealth synergy teamwork feat at 3rd. This has proved great fun in play if driving the ref to despair that the least stealthy member of the party is the tiger - many encounters have been murdered in their beds or just walked straight past in the night.

The other party oddity is no one can use a medium size martial weapon - based on previous APs I think we all assumed anything that turned up would be dog slicers or khopeshes or large sized or similarly flavorful but exotic stuff. Seeing a +1 cutlass was a mystifying event.

Anyway, it was all going great for module 1 & I was able to have fun doing loads.

Wormwood mutiny spoilers:
Sneaking around the boat, doing the various chores, seducing Sandara Quinn, winning over the crew, climbing all over the place thanks to my ninja talent, even decking Plugg single handed at level 2 by sneaking out at night, climbing around the back of the ship, breaking the window and fighting him in an unlit cabin. All fantastic fun and really pulling my weight for the party.

For the second module things haven't been going so well, not unrelated to going up in level I'm sure.

Naval combat doesn't really suit a mainly melee rogue - not having the highest profession sailor, long range spells or exotic weapon proficiency in siege engines means there's not a lot to do as ships close.

When it does come to boarding, the rest of the party understandably generally want to stay at range. The gunslinger and alchemist will occasionally join melee if asked nicely but are really only doing it as a favour to me. The druid's tiger gets sent in occasionally but he understandably doesn't want to send him into the middle of aoe spells and bombs or onto another ship almost alone. Jumping into the enemy ship's rigging alone often lets me get the drop on one enemy but then become target #1 for the opposition simply because they can reach me.

Sea monsters are an even bigger headache - my only way to get meaningfully involved is to jump into the sea with them which is hardly ideal.

I have taken a couple of stat choices to allow sniping with a crossbow, but 1 shot every other round isn't that hot and more importantly hardly fits the image of a daring pirate captain (at least not in front of the crew)

Fever Sea spoilers:

So after a series of close calls, repeatedly ending a fight unconscious and close to death, often due to a single crit, we come to the canopy creeper. I manage to hack out of the tendrils and get to the middle of it, flanking with the tiger - finally a chance to shine again! It crits and one shot kills me before I strike a blow...

The party retreat from the fight and drag my corpse back to the ship, with the intent of sailing off in search of raise dead.

Seeing all the problems above I consider saying that for whatever IC reason the dead spirit isn't willing to accept a restore life as a good break to change to a new character.

My beloved Sandara guilt trips me with speak with dead questions into to saying yes, alright, I'll come back.

We return in search of revenge, the druid loading up on snowball spells and the alchemist stocks up on defoliant and liquid ice that he mixes together with an item.

Fight number two goes much better and the horror is frozen to death. In it I've cut someone out of creepers once and thrown a dagger for a mighty 1 point of damage. The gunslinger & look at each sympathetically (he got to do about 10 pts)

on the plus side, we just got almost enough xp to take us to level 7

So... I'm looking for advice please - on what that might get me back in the game and able to get involved more without being squished all the time - what to take for the next few levels as (multiclasses, feats?), items to spend my plunder on, tactics to try.

I do ask though
- please avoid spoilers for anything further into the AP
- bear in mind the rest of the party make up and the environment we are in
- I know the current build has things I'd change with hindsight (e.g con 10) but I'm after advice on what to do next, not what I should have been
- please don't call him a rouge, the guy has suffered enough lately

My current stats:

Finn - level 6 dhamphir unchained rogue
Str 11 Dex 19 Con 10 Int 10 Wis 10 Cha 17
Feats/Traits - Expert Sniper (trying to do something at range), Natural Charmer (oddly seems to negate itself 'I roll a 10 and get diplomacy check of 25 seems to get better response from friendly NPCs than 'I take time to apply my charm and get 35 automatically' - the fact I'm not making a roll may be having a subconscious effect on the GM, Stealth Synergy, Two Weapon Fighting, Weapon Finesse, Weapon Focus (shortsword), Wall Climber, Fangs (useless, never bitten anyone)

Skills - Stealth, Perception, Disable Device, Diplomacy, UMD maxed out, broad spread of other skills. Stealth skill unlock for sniping.

AC 20, Hp 33 (I know), normal attacks - two shortswords at +8/+8 D6 +5 (2 offhand) + 3d6 sneak or light crossbow at +9 / D8 + 3d6 sneak
(both + debilitating strike options)
Main Gear: +1 shortsword, masterwork shortsword, +1 chain shirt, handy haversack, amulet of nat ac+1, boots of the cat, circlet of persuasion, wand of infernal healing, wand of mirror image, npc healer girlfriend (hey, she knows inflict spells...), pirate ship, large crew

Any advice and pointers much appreciated

Thanks for reading all this

Julian

TLDR - level 6 unchained rogue seeks stat advice that isn't 'play another character'


A couple of suggestions.

Get the PDF / hard copy of the Fire as She Bears supplement from Frog God Games then lend it to your DM. It's only a few dollars.

- inside are rules for captains to inspire the crew in battle - which fits with your high Charisma and lack of bard in the party.
- there are also rules for issuing orders to crew to put out fire, repair the ship etc.

None of these are game breaking but they do add a much greater dimension to the ship to ship combat sections.

The other option is to board the enemy ship as soon as possible as a party, using ramming, grappling or magic. Then treat the ship combats as just another adventure location.

Regarding character options, maybe consider some teamwork feats or consider a dip into Inquisitor for a few levels. Effectively you are the captain so leverage the fact that the crew follow you - lead the boarding party with crew to flank with as most of your other party sound like ranged types (gunslinger, alchemist, Druid).

To be honest it sounds like you are having a whale of a time. Book two is very ship combat based. Just remember Paizo like to vary the challenges book to book so you may not be fighting ship to ship a lot in every book.

Liberty's Edge

Well, let's see.

You really need a flanking buddy to get the most out of being a Rogue...I'd talk to the druid. His Tiger should be fine as long as you are (it has Evasion by this level and a solid Reflex Save) and can provide perfectly good flanking for you.

If you can make a small retroactive change the Scout archetype would also serve you well. Getting to Sneak Attack on a charge is very good.

For a bit more in the way of ranged options, Quick Draw would allow you to throw some extra daggers with TWF, which is something, and is generally a decent Feat choice for someone who switch hits. Just buy, y'know, 20 or 30 daggers and go to town. Later on, if the Alchemist has Infusion, he can give you Greater Invisibility and your Sneak Attack will even apply to basically all of said ranged attacks.

Your Saves are also terrible, but don't seem to be your main complaint, so I'll just note that raising those is a good plan.

As for multiclassing...that might be a good plan, too. You have a boatload of Charisma that isn't doing a whole lot for you mechanically, and dipping a Class that it helped with is no bad idea. The first thought that leaps to mind mechanically is Paladin...but I doubt you're LG.

That being the case, have you thought about Oracle? A few levels of Warsighted Oracle of, say, Metal with a fun Curse might do some very nice things for your abilities in combat. It's not an optimal build, but then neither is your character to start with. It'd let you do your own Inflict spells (or use a Wand anyway) as well.

Alternately, a few levels of, say, Lore Warden Fighter would load you up with Bonus Feats, possibly enough to make you a viable ranged combatant (Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Rapid Shot over the next two levels) and let you switch to a Longbow for ranged. You could get some of the same effect plus some synchronicity in abilities going Slayer. Indeed, you could go Slayer for the rest of your levels and probably not regret it, gaining Sneak Attack at a lower rate but many compensations. Either would also work even if not dabbling in archery, but are less necessary in that case. Urban Barbarian or Urban Bloodrager is also a possibility, jacking your Dex up even further and providing some interesting options.

Really, a dip into many martial classes would be potentially good, especially those with sneak attack or who gain something out of Charisma.


Imho, your best bet is to learn how to use a siege weapon.


Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Thanks - sounds like that supplement might help a lot - because the Ref takes the understandable approach of keeping the NPC vs NPC combat as background description, previous actions to rally the crew with diplomacy have lead to nice flavour descriptions, which is great, but they don't currently have the kind of material effect on the encounter a toxic bomb does.

We acquired a corvus which is used to board, its just with generally only the PCs & the enemy leadership actually on the map as figures instead of assumed to be fighting in the background, it can be a bit of a case of 'guys? anyone else coming?'

The campaign is hugely entertaining, just looking for ways to avoid becoming a bystander* in combats as the level rises.

*bleeding unconcious on the deck is a form of being a bystander I found...

Grand Lodge

Wave oracle dip with water sightrevelation - cast obscuring mist and be "Capt. Sneak'a'lot"
There is a build somewhere on this forum with this focus.

Edited: Found it here:
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2m81d?Mist-Assassin#33


If you don't have a flanking bonus it's going to be rough. Either way Press to the Wall and Circling Mongoose are good feats for a melee rogue.


The tiger has evasion and perhaps the druid may have missed this. What you should do if he isn't interested in that is drinking an Invisibility infusion (hopefully from alch) and swinging around the long way. Then take out people hurt by bombs. By the time you drop one the bombs should hurt another enough to take that one out. Then you're ok.

Basically patience may pay off for you in the long run. Once you can count on displacement I think you'll be just fine. Also shield pots are a great idea.

Lastly a cloak of resistance should carry you.


Speaking as the referee for this game - the AP encounters do seem to be walkover... Walkover... Walkover... Horror death fest, so I may have slightly overestimated the players' ability to handle a fight. They have made mincemeat of most of the encounters by dint of having massive damage and getting the jump on people.

Retraining and level dipping both look like sensible options to investigate further (I don't really know the Oracle class so haven't considered it till now).

Having the tiger flank more would help, the fact that the other players have 20+ years experience on him may have made the druid more cautious about acting than he needs to be.

Finally, Fire as She Bears-I have read mentions of it, does anyone have any reviews? I had assumed it was just a ship to ship combat system, but am happy to buy a copy if there is more to expand what PCs can do.


I bought the PdF for a few dollars off Paizo.

Essentially it is a system that mimics master and commander style ship combat.

It includes the following...

1. Detailed ship building mechanics, that involve hull sections and rigging sections, each section is roughly a 20ft cube and has a set of hps, AC etc. It also includes rules for special materials, armour, silk rigging etc.

2. There are extensive details for cannons and other siege weapons on board ship, fire ships etc. Also special ship locations and magic ship improvements.

3c there is a in depth ship combat system that essentially allows officer actions like putting out fires, healing crew, inspiring the crew, ship manoeuvres and special ship attacks. Essential each ship has officers and they can give orders to crew to achieve tasks as well as do their own actions. There are also rules for repairs, ships sinking etc.

4. There is a big section on new spells and how existing spells would affect ships.

5. A large section on NPC crew, sailors, officers etc

6. Sample ships and crews from the Razor Coast campaign.

I was able to build the man's promise as a simple 6 hull, 5 rigging ship. It's definitely worth taking a look at. It was a big part of what made me want to DM skull and shackles. There are quite a few forum posts about the book with comments from the designer as well which are worth a read first if you google them.

Have fun I'm at the end of book 2 and loving skull and shackles.


Just checked and there are several reviews on paizo, including a very detailed and favourable five star review from Endzeitgeist. It's worth having a read as he goes into far more detail than me.

One thing I meant to say is that different characters have chance to excel in different sections of the campaign. Ship to ship is only one part and there are substantial land and port city parts.

Grand Lodge

Watersight also helps piloting the ship in bad weather.
Maybe retrain some feats to grab a longspear and combat reflexes to pull off as many sneak attacks as possible.
Elven Branched spear would be better (finnesse able).


Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Thanks for all the suggestions - oracle dip looks promising (although trying to work out the curse to take - given talking to people is the one thing I do truly shine at, it can't be deaf. Hunger seems very appropriate for a dhamphir but could be too crippling)

Grand Lodge

Branded, Foretold or Unchained is not too troublesome.
Branded has a nice level 5 boost if you dip so much.


JulianW wrote:


We acquired a corvus which is used to board, its just with generally only the PCs & the enemy leadership actually on the map as figures instead of assumed to be fighting in the background, it can be a bit of a case of 'guys? anyone else coming?'

The rest of the crew fighting "in the background" & not even being represented on the map - makes me sad.

When we ran this one we had every crew member represented as a mini with a small stat card (some more detailed than others).
When boarding actions occurred it was IMPORTANT where people were. You didn't just throw AoEs about. And sometimes it was a real trick to get to PCs/enemy command NPCs into contact....
Every attack was rolled & applied.
In combat each player controlled x crew + their own pc. The DM (& sometimes a friend) would control the enemies. If/when a PC went down, the player still had stuff to do.
Doing mass combat like this took a lot of work & time. But it was great fun!

I realize that kind of combat won't work for many groups. So to kind of replicate it you could take Leadership.


You could ask your DM to let you rebuild into a more hardy class with a rogue VMC to keep the flavor, but even then survivability is going to be poor as the only dedicated melee. Try to stack on miss chance to boost your defenses, cloak of displacement is a good start. Oils of darkness are a good consumable option.

The only other real option is to take on more of a support role during combat. Stay close to your allies and wait for enemies to close to gap, if you have the room for it, the dazzling display line of feats is pretty good, and gets a lot of mileage out of the enemies in S&S.

See if you can talk the Druid into taking on a more front-line role. There's going to be many times throughout the AP when relying on spells simply won't be enough to carry him through the day, especially since he passed up the domain for the animal companion. That would triple the targets as the tiger would likely he joining the Druid in melee. Alternatively he could start summoning some critters by sacrificing spells.


Oracle of the sea sounds a little like changing character.

One thing to consider is dipping into swashbuckler if you are allowed the advanced classes. The parry and riposte mechanic will give you an extra line of defence. It will synergist well with the high dex high charisma of your rogue without changing the essential nature of your character. Also at this point with Con 10 the toughness feat is going to add about 20 - 25% onto your hp. Also consider asking the DM for a con boosting item in the next treasure haul.

Just remember that it is an AP and it sounds like most of your deaths have come about through bad luck' rather than bad choices. The DM can't stop Crits happening! Incidentally as a DM and a player I would urge you to be wary of some of the suggestions. Trying some of the extremely powerful combos like tripping-reach-combat-reflexes will just flip the disparity over the other way and risk making you the problem. I have a reach cleric in our party and it makes fights with lower levels sailors pointless.

Just as an aside there is a school of thought that miss chances don't stack so check with your DM first.

Let us know what you decide to do!


Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
The Sword wrote:

Oracle of the sea sounds a little like changing character.

One thing to consider is dipping into swashbuckler if you are allowed the advanced classes.(snip)

Just remember that it is an AP and it sounds like most of your deaths have come about through bad luck' rather than bad choices. The DM can't stop Crits happening! Incidentally as a DM and a player I would urge you to be wary of some of the suggestions. Trying some of the extremely powerful combos like tripping-reach-combat-reflexes will just flip the disparity over the other way and risk making you the problem.

(snip)

I'm going to disagree with some of these points & I hope this doesn't sound ungrateful as you've given a lot of helpful advice!

Before I do that - yes advanced class guide is an option (we've always just assumed all Paizo content is fine, 3 party stuff has never been discussed - I would assume not) - swashbuckler & toughness certainly are options I'll consider as is getting the alchemist to craft a con item when more cash is available.

I'd disagree that being taken out by crits is purely bad luck. If I take a couple of regular hits I can survive and/or back off, but with a low hp character, a big crit or couple of lucky damage rolls can take you from barely scratched or uninjured to dead in a single round (have seen several similar deaths in other games lately).

Which brings me to the points I need to reject. Yes something like oracle of the sea would be changing the character, but to be true to the original concept something has to change quite radically or he'll end up having to take only a supporting role in combat, which really would be a betrayal of his original daring promise from module 1.

Besides I can easily see a sea going dhamphir conjuring mists as quite in flavour. There does seem to be a line of thought that while other similar classes (cough ninja cough) pick up supernatural flavoured powers all over the place, rogues & fighters are somehow meant to stay mundane.

As for becoming the overpowering problem - I guess if we do accidently go to far I can always reign it in, but given how things have worked out so far, I doubt this is likely to happen - right now I'm struggling to achieve much in what ought to be pretty good environments for me.

But I'll certainly send an update with what I settle on and then how it works out - really do appreciate all the time people have taken to give advice.


Generally i don't think a Rouge captain will do well beyond sailing waters near settlements where he can quickly slip on and off dry land.

Sea monsters are a huge pain for anyone who does'nt have a swim speed or easy access to aquatic abilities, especially if you're a character who needs other characters to dive in with him. You need to adopt a passive, patient role in monster and ship-ship battles.
One of the big misconceptions about sneak attack characters is that they HAVE to be in the melee like everyone else. If you dont see the chance to shine, dont, stay hidden. Let the other peeps do the hard work. Then when the moment arrives you go and obliterate the fight on your own.
Until that moment arrives you should stay on the ship giving commands, messing with the steering wheel or climbing into the best position to strike or counterstrike from. That might mean climbing up the mast to drop down on the enemy later, or behind some obstruction.

If you absolutely must have a ranged weapon, try hiding somewhere high up and sniping, the -20 penalty might seem debilitating but remember that if you're using a crossbow that means you can spend every other round hiding from sight and the others firing. Keep moving along the obstructions and you'll get sneak attack benefits every round. Ship combat is actually the perfect place for a short ranged sneak attacking combatant.

Liberty's Edge

1 person marked this as a favorite.
JulianW wrote:
Thanks for all the suggestions - oracle dip looks promising (although trying to work out the curse to take - given talking to people is the one thing I do truly shine at, it can't be deaf. Hunger seems very appropriate for a dhamphir but could be too crippling)

I'm a big fan of Legalistic for social characters. It grants several pretty good social bonuses in exchange for not being able to break your given word. As long as you word things very carefully and specifically the latter isn't a big problem.

You could flavor the whole 'getting a level of Oracle' thing as a bargain with a local Water-spirit (or Besmara), too. And the reason you have Legalistic is because your powers come from a sworn oath.

Dark Archive

You could lose a leg to a shark and get the lame curse! :D

Also, I'll suggest looking at the Shadowdancer presitge class, you get a Shadow who can flank with you (and deal the incredibly mean Str drain), you get the ability to leap around from shadow to shadow to shadow and a few other things that might work really well with the stealthy attitude you seem to have.

That noted, picking up a pistol of your own might also help, touch attacks with sneak damage within 30ft could prove incredibly dangerous (especially with the Hide in Plain Sight ability from Shadowdancer).


Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

OK so I promised an update on choices made and how they worked out.

So I retrained two things (while we were still 6th level)
- natural charmer feat to toughness
- favoured class choice from + to stealth & perception in dim light to just +1 hp/level

This worked well in the last session, giving +12hp, which made the key difference to not being taken out again.

We were in underwater caverns which changed the party dynamic a lot too - the alchemist couldn't use bombs so was getting stuck in with a boarding pike, the druid in shark form, the tiger animal companion* were all getting into melee - so no shortage of flanking buddies.

Once again teamwork stealth synergy worked brilliantly.

We've now gained enough xp to level to 7th so going to take a level of swashbuckler and accomplished sneak attacker to offset the loss of sneak damage. Will take another level of it at 8th for the saving throw bonus. That gives martial weapons too so will grab a masterwork longbow for sniping purposes.

We also have a decent pile of treasure - currently debating the merits of a helm of underwater action vs getting a cloak of the manta ray made - leaning towards the latter - 60ft swim speed could be great for getting into position, the tail attack is great, plus its got lots of cool flavour (jump off ship, swim rapidly under enemy ship, climb sneakily up the other side...)

Another update after the next session or two in a few weeks. Thanks for all the advice everyone!

Dark Archive

Go for the cloak every single time, I did and never once regretted it in the AP.


Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Deadmanwalking wrote:
Your Saves are also terrible, but don't seem to be your main complaint, so I'll just note that raising those is a good plan.saxxa

Can't say I wasn't warned.

The extra hp were making all the difference.
Spoiler:
just got a letter of marque in my name too

Phantasmal killer, DC19
You can guess how that turned out.

Still loving the AP, but I think its time for a new plan.


Where did the phantasmal killer come from if you don't mind me asking? Maybe spoiler it for the benefit of those not yet through that area.

Edit: don't worry just seen it. That's tough, failing two saves, though they are a rogues worst. Sounds like the Neriathale was being very "efficient" ; )

The swashbuckler will help with saves if you stick at it - particularly save or suck effects (or die) It sounds like you have a good piratical build. It seems a shame to abandon ship.

Is raise dead an option?

Alternatively play a magus and go from the least effective character to a multi-action murder spam spell fighter. There are arcana that still let you have parry and riposte too if you want to stay along a swashbuckling theme.

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Advice / Remedial Help Needed for Roguish Pirate Captain (contains Skull and Shackles spoilers) All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.
Recent threads in Advice