Oh, oh.... If you upgrade Wayfinder, Tessa will let you suck on her toes.
Um... I'll look at other feats then... yep spell focus looking great right about now :)
I have done my homework, dear GM. And Polli's vote would be to do the first merchant acquisition fully and then decide after that whether to simplify or grind.
Doing the first acquisition fully ... would that include ship maneuvering and ship combat (which we haven't done yet at all)?
Oh... that was not in the rules you required me to read... um... I retract my vote. Simple is better.
So, have I slept off the Dex poison by the christening?
Why, are you going to do some activity that requires dex?
Inquiring minds want to know...
I thought that was the plan, yes
As mentioned, this section becomes a little sandbox-y. There have been a couple of options mentioned as far as your next challenge. One being to set to task immediately in the finding of prey. Another possibility would be investigating 'Tidewater Rock'. Other things may occur to you and are possible.
Another thing that I forgot to mention would be that you can recruit more sailors to your crew when you're in port (including Rickety's). This is done with a DC 20 skill check: Intimidate to press-gang people. Bluff to trick them. Diplomacy to convince them that you're a great bunch of people to sail with. A successful check will net you 1d4+2 sailors and will take a full day. I'll put this information on the Campaign tab as well.
Going forward, please give me a ship's watch schedule (if you're going to have any). Including how many crew, what shifts they watch, and if any PCs are regularly taking a watch.
Also, you can check the maps for an overview map of the Shackles including your current location.
This is why we have people in charge. Captains do your managerial duties!
"But I've seen the boss's job ... and I don't want it." - Bill Cosby
Marisan talked about making me the gunnery chief (or whatever it’s called), and Tessa asked me about my out of combat areas of expertise on board (which I told her were helmswoman, rigger, and to a lesser extent navigator), but as far as I know the captains have not yet assigned me an official task/position on the ship...
I’m more than willing to take a watch shift (as long as it doesn’t completely interfere with our extracurricular activities), but I can’t really say when/where until I know what my position is?
I'll do managerial and recruiting duties later when I get home. Not even going to try while posting from phone! And you lot are asleep anyway...
I'm awake! :P
I’m only a little bit sleeping
I just read through the ship to ship rules again and I have a couple questions... the big one is, are we going to mostly skip to the boarding and assume that both ships stop at that point? If not, we need to have someone at them helm the whole time (or until we do stop), but I'm assuming that Tessa is going to want to leap aboard our prey and start stabbing... do we have an NPC appointed to take the wheel when that time comes? Is that something we want to assume was set up off camera, or something that Val should mention to her (yet inexperienced) captains in gameplay? Also, if we're not skipping ahead to already stopped, is the ballista the only means we have of trying to take out their propulsion or can I line people up on the deck with bows to work on it too? (I didn't see anything in the rules about that, though I may have just missed it)
Also, @Harmony mentioned possibly giving the bracers of archery to Val, but never did in gameplay. Was that something you were planning on doing or no?
If you can beat the three Profession rolls then the Siren will have caught her prey and you can assume that the ships come to a halt.
I'll allow anyone with Profession (sailor) to use the ballista as if they were proficient with them - using their normal ranged combat attack bonus.
The ballista can be used to attack the other ship directly. Any other ranged effects (ranged weapons, spells, etc.) can be used to attack the other crew once within range. I'll let you know when you start getting close enough.
I'll have another post up in a bit.
So, we can target people with bows/crossbows but couldn't use them to take out the opponents' wheel or sails? I suppose if we're going to have the ships halted when normal combat begins that makes sense.
That's correct.
Cool, thanks! Did you have names for which crewmen (or women) seem best suited to the task or are they just red shirts?
Stat-wise, all the crew on the online roster are identical. They'll each have a +4 ranged attack bonus.
So, feel free to tap any of them on the shoulder and 'volunteer' them. :)
Ok... follow up question... is there a new roster that I’m not seeing somewhere? When I click on the ‘known crew’ link it still lists all the old officers (including Scourge and Plugg) and a hostile Aretta Benson as crew-members...
Also, am I correct in thinking that the ballista permanently face opposite directions (so I only need enough people to operate one at a time, unless two ships try to sandwich us)?
I have not updated the officer portion of the crew roster but the crew below the line should be correct. And, as far as I remember (could be mistaken), Aretta is still a member of the crew - not a trusted member, mind you. :)
The ballista can be turned so they can both have the same facing (hopefully someone isn't bearing a grudge). And they only require a crew of one.
I'm modifying the pursuit portion of the combat rules. Current, for sailing vessels, each pilot makes three Profession (sailor) roll and if the prey rolls higher for all three they escape and if the pursuer rolls higher for all three they catch them. Otherwise it's a draw. Uggg. With two pilots with closely matched skills that could go on for hundreds of rolls - boring.
Instead, you'll have a pursuit score that starts at 0. Each roll the prey wins gives a -1 and each roll the pursuer wins gives a +1. Reach -3 and the ship gets away. Reach +3 and they're caught. Much quicker to resolve and the skills still mean something.
Thanks. I’m sorry to be a pain, but if I could ask one more question... it looks like you can load the ballista faster with 2 people, right? So, if I claim 2 people for my gunnery crew we could point both of ballista the same way and I could fire ballista A while they load ballista B, then next round I could fire ballista B while they reload A, and then following that pattern I could fire every round while they continually reload?
That is correct.
It's also assumed that the weapons begin the combat fully loaded.
Yeah, I saw that, but if we fire both in the first round I’d have nothing to do in the second round. Thanks.
I have a question.
Nope. No I don't, Valeria asked all possible questions. :)
She didn't ask anything about swallows so that's blatantly not true.
What do we need to know about swallows?
Something about air speed?
We need to know THAT?!?!
We'll see what happens when the Bridge of Death shows up.
Also, @Harmony mentioned possibly giving the bracers of archery to Val, but never did in gameplay. Was that something you were planning on doing or no?
I did mention it, and haven't done it. After the battle :D
Is just conquering Tidewater Rock enough or would we need to leave a crew behind? If it's the former I say we go for it. If it's the latter I say we wait until we have enough to hold it while continuing to make our renown grow. We would also want to have at least a few we trust there.
My monkey was coming along, they haven't done anything to him right?
I will be out of town without internet access from Saturday 2/29 until Friday 3/6. It may take me until the following Monday to catch up on everything.
GM, please bot me as necessary.
Is there a place where our current renown is stated?
Not currently, no. I'll put it in my GM Statline and on the Campaign Tab when I get a chance.
So it sounds like you'll be selling the Famished Mane. It will take approximately five days to reach Bloodcove.
What are your plans for the captured crew? It was suggested to put them in the Chelish ship's longboats with food and water a leave them at sea. Other options would be to bring them with you to Bloodcove or to just execute them.
When would you like to run your 'fire drill'?
Harmony will set them off in the ships boats with about a weeks worth of food and water unless stopped. She doesn't want to kill them, but equally she isn't having them on board ship when we can't deal with them.
As to the 'fire drill'...
Let me know when you plan to do your 'fire drill' test and I'll move us along.
With the sale of the Famished Mane you currently have 12 points of plunder. If you'd like to sell that for gold here in Bloodcove, see the Campaign Tab for detailed information.
Summarizing here: 1 day per point of plunder to sell. Bloodcove is a small city so you can sell it for 800 gp per point. The seller can increase the amount to 850 gp per point with a DC 20 Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, or any applicable Profession skill. To 900 gp with a DC 30 roll.
Also note that the amount of gold you sell the plunder for already assumes an appropriate amount paid to your crew - so that's all PC gold.
Also remember that this is a port which is somewhere that you can increase your Infamy/Disprepute (also see the Campaign Tab for how to do so.)
My county (and state) have declared a state of emergency because of covid19. All of the schools are closed and there are widespread shortages of food and cleaning supplies as people stock up in preparation for ‘social distancing’ and/or self-quarantines. It’s unclear exactly how all this will effect my work schedule (and personal time), so please feel free to bot me if necessary over the next couple weeks.
Regarding port activities... I'm garbage at all of the skills that we need for most of the useful activities. I think the most overall bang for our buck would probably be to have Tessa recruit, Harm sell, and Polli and Donm work on our reputation? Polli's chance to raise our infamy isn't as good as Harm's but she can use Intimidate for that (and not the other two iirc) so that lets us try 3 things instead of 2 (and Donm can take 10 to assist her without them having to separate at all).
Polli can sell with intimidate actually according to the full rules. It'd be DC20 for a bump to 85% which she can get taking 10 I think. That would be 12 x 850 = 10,200gp.
That 12 days gives Harmony plenty of time to tell the groups stories and hopefully rack up the maximum 5 Infamy in Bloodcove, which takes us halfway to the next threshold, and we can go to a different port and do it all over again to get there.
So: Polli (and Domonsail), 12 days to sell. I suggest taking 10 on intimidate just tot guarentee our sales.
Tessa: spend 12 days recruiting, should fill our number nicely and secure us some good loyal people.
Harmony: Get drunk and tell stories until she can't any more, and then work on crew morale.
Val/Marisan: shag each other silly and cause trouble? Or more seriously - find out who/what Mina and Fina are.
I’m working on it! Well, the second part (for now). Did you tell all of us that they were weirdly resistant to magic or just certain people?
edit: lol- apparently I should have checked gameplay first!
Yes Captain Violet! The quartermaster and her little wizard sidekick are on the job.
Yes Captain Violet! The quartermaster and her little wizard sidekick are on the job.
Wait! Wait! Wait! I thought I was the sidekick! Suddenly it all falls on my adorably red shoulders. I need a sexy dress, time to go find the twin.
Donomsail, I PMed you a link to the dress that Fina provided for you.
@Itzi- the twins don't vanish after the first day do they? If I don't spot them at all on the second or third day during my time out and about I'll start actively wandering the city keeping an eye out for them. In that same vein, I'm still hoping Mina will initiate another conversation with me, given how we left things last time; so feel free to kick that off (and let me know what day it happens on) if/when you like.