Help me and my friends build the best pirate company

[Osian Oisìn]

Hi me and my friends are going to start a S&S camapign, we are 6 and we need advices for the best classes to fill the role of:
- captain, he must be charismatic and quite smart, leading his crew in combat. The enemies must be scared by his legend
- quartermaster, he is the best friend of the crew, the captain commands his crew, quartemaster persuades them to obey
- the surgeon
- the carpenter
- the navigator
- the guy who manages the treasure

All official books
No 3rd party
No good people, if possible all true neutral or chaotic neutral

[captain yesterday]

Bard, Mesmerist, Swashbuckler, or Sorcerer.

Druid for pilot/navigator, and Kineticist is always fun.

Honestly, any class except Cavalier (mounts) or Paladin (goody two shoes a*~#%~!s!) will make a great choice.

I ran it for all bards once even. :-)

[jedi8187]

Alchemist seems a shoe in for doctor (I know that's my plan when my group gets around to running it). I like the idea of a aero/hydro kineticist navigator, but any aquatic themed spellcaster archetype could work. Swashbuckler for captain, or any of the pirate themed archetypes I guess. Quartermaster could be some clergy of Besmara, helping keep the ship safe through faith. Treasure guy could be almost anything, same with carpenter.

[Tomos]

Osian Oisìn wrote:

Hi me and my friends are going to start a S&S camapign, we are 6 and we need advices for the best classes to fill the role of:

- captain, he must be charismatic and quite smart, leading his crew in combat. The enemies must be scared by his legend
- quartermaster, he is the best friend of the crew, the captain commands his crew, quartemaster persuades them to obey
- the surgeon
- the carpenter
- the navigator
- the guy who manages the treasure

All official books
No 3rd party
No good people, if possible all true neutral or chaotic neutral

Suggestions:

-Captain = Daring Champion Cavalier. Gives up Mount to get Finesse and replaces Int with Cha on combat feat prereqs, among other good stuff.
Cavalier's Banner as the captain's pirate flag would be awesome.
Or swashbuckler. In our campaign, the captain is a Swashbuckler and uses Intimidate and Opportune Parry/Riposte to great effect. Swashbucklers and Cavaliers can be incredibly fearsome.

-Quartermaster = fits best with an Int-based class (detail oriented) or Cha-based caster (persuasive, affable). Ours is an NPC. Maybe an Investigator or maybe a Cleric or Inquisitor of Abadar (LN).

-Surgeon = Cleric of Besmara or Chirurgeon Alchemist

-Carpenter = any class, just rank up Profession: Shipwright or Carpenter. Wood Oracle or Druid maybe?

-Navigator/Pilot = Storm Druid or Waves Shaman

-The guy who manages the treasure would be the Quartermaster. I highly recommend a Cleric or Inquisitor of Abadar.

[UnArcaneElection]

^Abadar qualifies by being non-good, but I don't see Abadar playing well with pirates, because those are seaborne brigands, which Abadar hates (it's even in Abadar's Paladin Code). Better for the quartermaster and treasure master to be a Cleric or Inquisitor of Besmara.

[SmiloDan]

Rangers make surprisingly ideal pirates. Lots of skills, good saves against seasickness and cannonball explosions, favored terrain, appropriate spells. Maybe for carpenter, since they can afford to "waste" skill points on Craft/Profession cutting up and nailing back together wood. Also, Climb, Intimidate, Perception, Stealth, Survival, Swim will all see good use. Slayer might work well too.

[UnArcaneElection]

^Ranger even has a pirate archetype, Freebooter. It looks pretty good to me, and I have seen a pretty good example in a Skull & Shackles PbP (unfortunately now inactive).

[Lewis Varner]

Hello

(this excessively long post is in relevance mostly to the actual roles the players will play as officers, and making it tangible, as opposed to what exactly they want to play class wise. There are a ton of options. Absolutely ridiculous amount. You could have a charismatic Vigilante, who uses his disguise skills and possibly even class feature to change the designation of the ship, so your crew could (like we did, though without the vigilante class,) be the Ivory Corsairs pirates, ironically manned mostly by women, but when approached, becomes the Stained Sheet, a traveling sealocked bordello run by the handsome and witty Kitsune 'priest' of Calistra (he was a prostitute by profession, pirate by need, and Sorcerer by blood).

I am well aware that you said no third party things, and I totally respect that. I personally usually find them distasteful, and not designed entirely with the parameters of most of the adventure paths in mind, nor in sync with the design team at Paizo. A very quick synopsis of myself is that I am running a time line in which (with the exception of Carrion Crown, and Kingmaker; both of which having been completed 50 years, and 20 years prior, respectively) where almost every AP is taking place at the same time. Yes. Jade, Mummies, and Iron Gods are set to take place later. My players have fourteen characters each (its a ridiculous amount of work) and I am running Just about as many campaigns, with tie ins, and noting things down which effect other games (Reign of winter froze the ports of Absolom which increased trade through Skull and Shackles, closed down the mountain valley for Runelords when they assaulted the fortress of giants, sent a storm which nearly froze everything in book one of Serpents skull; the final event of Book one of Second darkness sent a title wave that flooded half of poor Sandpoint and the lower reaches of Magnimar whilst Shattered Star was trying to reach the pillars...you get the idea. Anyway; my point--Look at Fire As She Bears, from Frog God Gaming.

We played throughout S&S, tied with the timeline, where a friend ran it. Were now neck deep into act V, and whilst the entire campaign was great; I myself played a Kitsune Enchanter Sorcerer named Vexx who solved 90% of our issues, is looked upon as the captain (he is NOT the captain, and generally refuses to have that kind of responsibility and daft amount of work put on his plate), and we have had explosions of fun, what I really felt lacking, when it even happened, was ship combat. It was bad, and for a campaign like this, where Ship to Ship combat can have its perfect time to shine, I found the lack of engaging rules to give it any real spotlight; when it did, it was one or two characters (usually Gunslinger Sniper and Enchanter) completely owning the entire encounter. Shout out to the witch, and stacking of different curse/mind effecting effects on poor bosses to have to roll like four times and take the worst result, and wreck their ships, but I digress. Ship combat was a chore we shied away from, did it quickly to not leave to many players out in the cold, and it all could have been so much more with this supplement.

The problems I had, as did the GM who ran, and all the players, is that the Ship customization, and rule sets presented, were very lack luster, and completely vague on many many many issues. You will see items for ships, and even see times where your players (as pirates) will take ships. Each was rather cookie cutter, and very dull. What to do with them, and the implementation of what the items did, was pretty much flavor. Even though the ship mastheads had in game mechanical effects, we never used it once...any of them. From the dragon breath to the curse on ram (Spoiler alert). Maybe none of this will be a problem for you. Most of our fun came directly from just role playing with each other. Ship combat was a...thing...in the background...that we mostly ignored.

FaSB (Fire as She Bears) re approaches ship combat, gives full rules for building ships like characters, outfitting them (even with armor...magic, different builds, materials, etc.) but also re-invents combat for ships so that each role on the ship is important, and it does combat on Ship to Ship combat incredibly well. Its combat system has the specific goal of include everyone at the table and make them useful, and make them FEEL like officers. Everybody gets their own CRB turn, and then a second roll in the initiative gives them their officer actions, directing crew under them to carry out orders. The navigator is not just a Profession Sailor checker. The Captain does not just shout orders. Cannonade fire targets locations on ship, killing or debilitating precious crew, a resource, that once runs low, becomes the burden of captain to decide to man the guns or put out the fires...It has vastly increased the fun of Ship to Ship combat, and I wish very much that we had it at the START of S&S rather than damn well near the end. We missed a huge amount of opportunity due to the chore of mindless combat on two platforms, which was more or less skipped over for a majority of the campaign.

Note that it is intended for Pathfinder, and was written more or less for, but not exclusive to, the Razor coast setting stuff. I was so impressed with FaSB that I started a different game where I mashed Cerulean Seas, Razor Coast, and Freeport supplements into one large Age of Sails setting. None of those are needed for FaSB however. And no I do not work for FGG, and I am not trying to adv for them...I just saw hat you may be starting it, or are in the early phases, and felt strongly enough to suggest this little book for this specific campaign, as a result of my experiences as a player in said AP

[SmiloDan]

I've never played the S&S adventure path, but I have run d20 Future space battles, and they were really boring for 90% of the players. Basically, the pilot got to fly around and shoot things, and everyone else watched the pilot fly around and shoot things.

Hopefully, the S&S rules for ship v. ship combat are better than that. I imagine archers would still be useful, as would long range spellchuckers.

[Osian Oisìn]

we are gonna play a brawler, a juju oracle, a druid( he thinks to play a shark shaman), a vexing daredevil mesmerist, a cleric of besmara and a barbarian

[Osian Oisìn]

Spoiler:

Khayr al-Din
Human (Ulfen) inquisitor (monster tactician) of Besmara 1
CN Medium humanoid (human)
Init +10; Senses Perception +8
--------------------
Defense
--------------------
AC 17, touch 14, flat-footed 13 (+3 armor, +4 Dex)
hp 10 (1d8+2)
Fort +4, Ref +4, Will +5
--------------------
Offense
--------------------
Speed 30 ft.
Melee rapier +4 (1d6+1/18-20)
Inquisitor (Monster Tactician) Spells Known (CL 1st; concentration +4)
1st (2/day)—cure light wounds, expeditious retreat
0 (at will)—create water, detect magic, guidance, light
Domain Reformation inquisition
--------------------
Statistics
--------------------
Str 12, Dex 18, Con 14, Int 12, Wis 16, Cha 7
Base Atk +0; CMB +1; CMD 15
Feats Improved Initiative, Weapon Finesse
Traits besmara's blessing, reactionary
Skills Bluff +5, Climb +4, Diplomacy +7, Intimidate +8, Perception +8, Profession (sailor) +8, Sense Motive +8, Stealth +10, Swim +4
Languages Common, Skald, Undercommon
SQ hide tracks, judgment of escape, stern gaze +1, summon monster I
Other Gear hide shirt, rapier, 110 gp
--------------------
Special Abilities
--------------------
Hide Tracks (Ex)
Inquisitor (Monster Tactician) Domain (Reformation Inquisition)

Granted Powers: You can speak with divine persuasiveness.
Judgment of Sacred Escape (Su)
Stern Gaze +1 (Ex)
Summon Monster I (6/day) (Sp)

He is the character i made for S&S

[SmiloDan]

Looks good. Having a super high initiative on a self-buffing character means that instead of going first in combat, you self-buff and essentially go last in combat. Which is a lot better than going in the middle of next round. If you get my meaning.

[Cevah]

Osian Oisìn wrote:

Hi me and my friends are going to start a S&S camapign, we are 6 and we need advices for the best classes to fill the role of:

- captain, he must be charismatic and quite smart, leading his crew in combat. The enemies must be scared by his legend
- quartermaster, he is the best friend of the crew, the captain commands his crew, quartemaster persuades them to obey
- the surgeon
- the carpenter
- the navigator
- the guy who manages the treasure

All official books
No 3rd party
No good people, if possible all true neutral or chaotic neutral

You can divvy up roles any way you want.

Captain: Charisma based, as he leads the ship, and later the armadas
Note: Profession(Sailor) is important later in the AP.

Pilot: Wisdom based, as it really helps in ship maneuvering.

First Mate: Manages the crew. Charisma or Intelligence based works here.

Quartermaster: Leads boarding parties. Any martial should do here.

Treasure Keeper: Any player that is detail oriented and willing to keep copious notes. Should be someone who is routinely at every session.

Other roles: varies. More dependent on the player desires.

Basically, all PCs are officers, but their titles are however they desire.

As the plot progresses, all the other players will get a chance to become captain of their own ship, so should not neglect the skills needed. I.e. don't dump charisma, and do use the skills mentioned above.

/cevah

[Osian Oisìn]

i made some changes since we play with heropoints and i choose to be an anti-hero for the bonus feat

Spoiler:

Khayr al-Din
Male grippli inquisitor (monster tactician) of Besmara 1 (Pathfinder Player Companion: Monster Summoner's Handbook 7, Pathfinder RPG Advanced Player's Guide 38, Pathfinder RPG Bestiary 2 149, Pathfinder RPG Ultimate Magic 45)
CN Small humanoid (grippli)
Init +6; Senses darkvision 60 ft.; Perception +8
--------------------
Defense
--------------------
AC 17, touch 15, flat-footed 13 (+2 armor, +4 Dex, +1 size)
hp 10 (1d8+2)
Fort +4, Ref +4, Will +5
--------------------
Offense
--------------------
Speed 30 ft., climb 20 ft.
Melee rapier +5 (1d4/18-20)
Inquisitor (Monster Tactician) Spells Known (CL 1st; concentration +4)
1st (2/day)—cure light wounds, expeditious retreat
0 (at will)—create water, detect magic, guidance, light
Domain Reformation inquisition
--------------------
Statistics
--------------------
Str 10, Dex 18, Con 14, Int 14, Wis 16, Cha 8
Base Atk +0; CMB -1; CMD 13
Feats Spell Focus (conjuration), Weapon Finesse
Traits besmara's blessing, reactionary, self-taught scholar
Skills Bluff +6, Climb +8, Diplomacy +9, Intimidate +10, Linguistics +6 (+7 to decipher unfamiliar language), Perception +8, Profession (sailor) +8, Sense Motive +8, Stealth +15 (+19 in marshes and forested areas.), Swim +4; Racial Modifiers +2 Diplomacy, +2 Intimidate
Languages Celestial, Common, Elven, Sylvan
SQ attached, camouflage, hide tracks, judgment of escape, stern gaze +1, summon monster I
Other Gear leather armor, rapier, iron holy symbol of Besmara Coin[UE], spell component pouch, 110 gp
--------------------
Special Abilities
--------------------
Attached (besmara's Coin) If your attachment is threatened, -1 Will & -2 save vs. fear
Camouflage +4 Stealth in marshes and forested areas.
Climbing (20 feet) You have a Climb speed.
Darkvision (60 feet) You can see in the dark (black and white only).
Hide Tracks (Ex) Creatures attempting to track you take a -5 penalty.
Inquisitor (Monster Tactician) Domain (Reformation Inquisition) Moved by divine disapproval of your church’s mistakes, you seek to correct them however you can.

Granted Powers: You can speak with divine persuasiveness.
Judgment of Sacred Escape (Su)
Spell Focus (Conjuration)
Stern Gaze +1 (Ex)
Summon Monster I (6/day) (Sp)

[SmiloDan]

Looks cool, but maybe consider getting a ranged weapon? You can easily climb into the riggings and snipe from up there.

[Osian Oisìn]

SmiloDan wrote:

Looks cool, but maybe consider getting a ranged weapon? You can easily climb into the riggings and snipe from up there.

how bad is the ranged combat underwater?

[SmiloDan]

Osian Oisìn wrote:

SmiloDan wrote:

Looks cool, but maybe consider getting a ranged weapon? You can easily climb into the riggings and snipe from up there.

how bad is the ranged combat underwater?

It can be challenging, but some weapons work better than others, like crossbows.

I just read the 5th Edition rules for underwater combat, so I don't want to mix them up.