DMJ's Skull & Shackles

Game Master Jonasty1031

Actually, something else has come to mind. Are there any official rules in pathfinder for how to teach? Say Xanxan's latest recruiting drive snags him a landlubber lass who very much wants to be a pirate and she's not an idiot or a klutz so should be able to learn. Does Xanxan need to make specific rolls to teach her? Do we just wing it?

With regards to Xanxan's post as well as the capturing of ships with your crew. All of the crew have ranks in Prof sailor, they even have skill focus in it. Check the stat block link for them in the game thread or the campaign tab. These crew NPC's are designed to basically be all you need for a crew member no matter what.

Now if you want to have someone trained up and learn things and generally be more useful than the default crew member, my best recommendation is exploring the leadership feat with a cohort, etc. The crew are essentially henchmen but they won't be leveling as you do, or certainly not to the degree that you might want.

Hey that's perfect. Six new crew means we can dump Tate and still have a full complement of 20 crew, excluding the PCs and Fishguts (not sure if 'cook' is supposed to count towards the crew) which gives us a bit of leeway.

Leaderhsip feat is an interesting idea, 6 characters with 6 cohorts and a slew of followers. Eventually we'd have enough to have 6 full ships!

The trick with the cutlasses is that they are next to worthless underwater. (-2 to hit and max of half damage!) Slashing weapons take a penalty vs. piercing weapons do not (see Ko'ulu with a trident and dagger). I imagine that as the adventures progress that we will be dealing with threats both in and out of the water, so we should have our crew equipped to deal with either.

I do like the idea of the boarding pikes though. Good catch, those will be pretty good for any fights.

They do have daggers, which do, on average 1 point less damage than a short sword, for any piercing requirements. The cutlasses (with a high crit range) are excellent against other sailors when we take ships or try to repel boarders.

That being said, I would be fine with getting a select group of "water" fighters special weapons to deal with underwater threats. A boarding axe might work since it can do either piercing or slashing and gives a climb bonus to get back onto the ship.

I just want to determine exactly how much cash we have left to throw around, so we need to sound off on what we're keeping for ourselves and the party.

Sorry for VERY late posting... thought I'd have more time today, but family contacted me half way through things and I had to juggle stuff. :(

So I've seen Tully and Xanxan, have we lost other people? I understand some of you might not have much to contribute but just checking to see if you're all around.

still here. Just not much to do right now.

Still about. Just writing that letter.

Sorry, Xanxan's still a bit paranoid about strangers and booze ;)

Unless they're scantily clad women..!

It's all good, when things get vague in the story like now I usually expect and am ok with people not having much to add, etc.

Still here. Been a little busy, so it happens to be fortuitous to not have much to add ;)

Arrrr!

Game post is up, sorry for the delay.

Tylos hears the far off screams and looks up from his book....before looking back down to his book muttering to himself Eh...it's probably nothing...

Sadly, the elf would thus be too late to come to the rescue, but at least later he found many uses for watered down gnome blood as a material component ;)

I'm pretty sure watered down gnome blood is the main ingredient in code red mountain dew.

Actually, that makes sense to me.

I'm not sure, but I think we maybe hurting the thing :)

"nimble halfling."

Gnomophobe!

YARGH!!! I don't know why I keep making that confusion. And you joke but a guy I gamed with truly hated gnomes and if you met an NPC gnome in his game, you could guarantee he was a bad guy. I'll try to be better about it.

Heh. Just having a bit of fun over the typo :)

Hard to be in a bad mood about anything given lucky Xanxan has been in this fight compared to some of his compatriots (Hang in there, guys!)

2 quick things.

1) With the holidays upon us, obviously schedules will become a little weird for people and there might be instances of unexpected downtime for folks. Totally understanding and we'll accomodate as needed. Specifically for Turkey Day, I'm gonna be busy Thursday and a chunk of Friday but I'll still try to have an update posted hopefully once per day at least. So happy holidays and such.

2) Some of you may or may not have noticed but I've posted a new recruitment thread up for another game I'm gonna run. I'll be running the 3.5 module Expedition to Castle Ravenloft! If you're interested, take a look and post on the thread.

Alrighty, I'll have an update posted to the game shortly and thanks again for playing!

Saw it. Dotted it. Happy Thanksgiving!

It's like you guys tried to get gobbled up by a naga today!

Certainly seems that way lol.

Get Callum a Norelco for Christmas. He likes close shaves! =P

On reading DMJ's description of events, was anyone else picturing the scene at the end of the Avengers, where Hulk revives Stark?

I wasn't but I am now!

Testing ...

Was allowing time if people wanted to discuss future pirating plans. I'll have an update posted tomorrow either way.

Oh, I was testing because for a moment I was getting error messages when I tried to post in another game. Looks like it was temporary

Ahh, sorry, I had meant to ask a question, but I think that was about the time the site went down, and thus losing my opportunity to post.

With Callum having been looking through the logs and charts over the past little while, would he have picked up on things like shipping routes, rich-low-defense settlements, etc.?

Hey all. Update will be coming soon, just ironing out some details. The book has you doing a few more "around the town" type of things (like the naga encounter) that don't really have any bearing on the campaign and with this being PBP, it can just add extra time before you get to the meat of things, namely getting to be true pirates! So I'm gonna gloss over most of that, just getting it squared away on my end so that we're ready to go from there.

Alrighty, game thread is posted and the Campaign Tab has been updated with more information, new crew, etc. Also everyone healed to full over the restful days. Couple of things I need clarified though.

1) What exactly was done with the ship? It was squibbed but what other modifications did you ultimately go with? Tully's math from a previous post looked sound to me so I just need to know what you guys got and that you subtracted the gold. Keep in mind that you can knock 500gp off the final price for saving the worker.

2) How were you outfitting the crew? Going forward, any new crew will bring some of their own stuff but for this beginning time you mentioned outfitting them with gear. What was the gear you bought and did someone make sure it is deducted from the loot list accordingly?

3) Related to the two points above, going forward can someone be responsible for the party loot? With the new Plunder system in place, this will need to be tracked along with party loot and having it in one place would be helpful. Tully, I don't necessarily want to volunteer you for that but you are doing a bang up job so far, would you mind continuing this?

4) Was anything done with Tate and/or Jape? They're currently on the crew list as I wasn't clear on what you were doing with them. Let me know what the final decision was with them and I will adjust the list accordingly.

1) Ship modifications:
Squib 2000 gp
Broad Rudder 500 gp +1 on all sailing checks
Rapid-Deploy Sails 1,000 gp +1 on all sailing checks
Silk Sails 1,500 gp +1 on opposed sailing checks to gain the upper hand, +10% non-combat speed

Credit from Rickety -500 gp

Total 4,500 gp

2) Crew outfitting:
I don't think we came to a final agreement for everything here. Noted that the crew already have both a cutlass and a dagger. Some things I think are for sure are:

12 boarding pikes (with brackets in each of the three masts to hold 4) 96 gp
9 light crossbows (since we have one in the loot) 315 gp
200 crossbow bolts (since we don't seem to have any apart from the signal ones) 20 gp
8 leather armor (since we have two in the loot - for the boarding party) 80 gp

Other items being looked at were: Shortsword, shortspears, and/or boarding axes for underwater combat (daggers might suffice, but the axes do add to climb checks), Saps (presumably for "aggressive recruiting"... I guess it's ok when the shoe's on the other foot).

I think the idea is to have them organized into a boarding party (w/ leather armor), a defense group (boarding pikes & crossbows), and perhaps some underwater types (piercing weapons), when not performing their regular sailing duties. Training and prepping them for defense are things that are more in Ko'ulu's ballywick.

4) Tate/Jape: Drop Tate for sure. "Sell his contract" or whatever. Jape can be dropped as well unless it looks like our former emnity has blown over.

As far as Jape, everything you've gathered is that despite getting off on the wrong foot with some of you, his whole siding with Plugg thing was just trying to avoid a lashing/keelhauling. He's mellowed out and while he certainly isn't the most jolly person to be around, you're not worried about him slitting your throats.

Tate is another matter. He hates you all and you him and he's just looking not to get killed. He won't actively try to mutiny or anything but you're pretty sure he'll try to run away on his own once you hit a bigger port if you haven't tossed him before then.

1) We definitely got Broad Rudder, and I think at least two smuggling compartments (Possibly we went up to four of those but I definitely remember the Broad Rudder). Frankly, Xanxan's little heart is thrilled by the gifts of figurehead and black sails.

After Edit: I forgot about the Rapid deploy sails :)

2) I think Ko'ulu was handling that. And Callum made some suggestions. Not sure how far they got. Xanxan's lady recruits might need new clothes ;) but what's more piratey than fishnet? ;)

3) Ooo, I'd second the Tully nomination and hopes he takes up the thankless job :)

4) They weren't coming along, but HOW we are getting rid of them wasn't decided. There was talk of trading them to another crew like you might trade a baseball player.

Speaking of ale and supplies for the crew, Xanxan wants to get some GOOD booze on this ship and we should put some money towards that.

EDIT: NVM, that's what I get for taking so long to post.

Ok. Given the DM's comments on Jape, I had Xanxan handle Tate, or at least try to, in his post.

going forward can someone be responsible for the party loot? With the new Plunder system in place, this will need to be tracked along with party loot and having it in one place would be helpful. Tully, I don't necessarily want to volunteer you for that but you are doing a bang up job so far, would you mind continuing this?

Aack! I've been pressed twice! =P

I've got no problem tracking the loot. But, I would rather not hold the game up for loot decisions. Up to this point, we seem to have been a little... non-committal.

So, from here on, I'll post the list with the prices and the total amount we each get. Everyone will get a chance to make a claim on any of the loot. Any claim-conflicts can be resolved either /ooc or by rolling off for the item. If an item is too expensive, you can either add the difference in gp, or you can "sell" an item you possess to the loot pool. Please make that clear in your post. If you don't want any of what's available, please post that to expedite things. If you don't make a claim, after a reasonable period, I'll assume you're just taking the cash.

On a more specific note, the Silk Sails are one upgrade too far, as expenses go. It'll have to be something we add later, I'm afraid. I removed the weapons for the crew and the cure light/mod potions from the loot pool. They'll be party loot. Anything else you want, you'll need to make a claim for.

Callum has already claimed the Tidewater Cutlass. I'm making a claim for the Mwk Handaxe and the Ring of Swimming. Everyone else, please make your claim with your next post. [/quartermaster]

I'd like to put a claim in on the Wand. Will save me a lot of spell slots lol.

Unless someone else wants it, Xanxan will take the Amulet then.

I'll keep the spyglass to help out in the crow's nest and the captain when he wants to examine something distant himself.

Tully, excellent job already! Thanks!!!

One quick question before updating.

What is the "standard" procedure for the ship and crew on a day-to-day basis? In the sense of, are you traveling 24 hours a day, with crew shifts at day and night? Are you resting at night? If you're not sailing at night, are you setting anchor or just keeping someone on the wheel to keep you generally on course? Are you setting any kind of watch for weather or trouble? Will there be downtime for the crew? Will you have a bloody hour, how are jobs and punishments handled? Things of this nature.

Obviously in specific situations we'll adjust accordingly but I'm looking for the days or even weeks you might be traveling at sea and nothing extra happens.

Also, I've updated the Campaign Tab with the ship enhancements and removing Tate from the crew list.

At this point now, not counting Fishguts who's busy during the day with cooking duties, you have a crew of exactly 20 not including yourselves. This allows you to sail with no penalty. As a note, outside of combat or extreme circumstances like a storm, having less than the full 20 crew (which gives a -10 to sailing checks) will have a negligble impact on normal sailing. It's only in the combat/extreme situations that this will matter when the DC's of sailing checks go up.

Of course if you have 1/2 this total or less, so 10 or less crew, the ship is unsailable.

I think Callum, when he is at the wheel, can be considered part of the crew when counting them up (presumably the driver of a vehicle is part of the crew).

If Jirobo takes the crows nest, that could account for another.

If the rest of the officers chip in with some of the crew tasks (I hear Xanxan really wants to help with the bilges), then we'd have enough to set a group (and one officer) aside for the night watch.

So, in the short term, with 6 players, 5 can be part of the day crew, and one runs the night shift.
So Callum driving.
Ko'ulu, Tully, and Tylos take some of the swab work (or rigging work if they want to try their hand at it) at -2 for slacking off because they're officers.
Xanxan or Jirobo up in the crow's nest, while the other runs the night shift (high Perception and Low-light vision).
15 crew during the day (no sailing penalty), 5 at night (unsailable but there for watch purposes).

Once we get 5 more crew the officers can return to full-time officer duties (with one still running the night shift).

We can consider taking on understudies (cohorts?) who have high skills in our specialities to take over during periods when we are not available (e.g. Callum won't be driving the ship 24/7).

------ALTERNATIVELY------

If we wanted to have two shifts of 10, we'd need a driver with at least a +8 on their Profession (sailor) check (thanks to the broad rudder and rapid-deploy sails) to take the other shift from Callum, so that we can have at least a result of 10 when taking 10.

We could split the crew in half, and the officers in half to take each shift.

Say Ko'ulu takes the wheel on one shift while Callum has the other. They each have high enough Prof (sailor).
Jirobo takes the crow's nest in one shift, Xanxan the other. They each have high Perception and low-light vision.
Finally, Tully and Tylos would swap out from each other. Perhaps put Tylos on the night shift with his low-light vision (even without the high perception).
We should have a spellcaster in each shift so Jirobo would be in one while Tylos in the other.
Same goes for the social types. So Tully in one and Xanxan in the other.

So something like:
Day shift: Tully (social, caster), Jirobo (perception, caster)
Night shift: Tylos (low-light, caster), Xanxan (social, low-light, perception)
Ko'ulu and Callum can take either shift. Ko'ulu will be good for a fight when it comes to it, Callum will be good to maneuver in and out of ship-to-ship things.

Personally, I feel that until we have enough crew to fully run two watches, we shouldn't be trying. I would rather shorten sail, and run an anchor watch at night, and have a full strength crew during the day. At Bloodcove, we can pick up some more crew, and whenever we are able to take a prize should hopefully add a few more. It shouldn't be too long before we are able to run at night. Hopefully by that time, we will have leveled once or twice and have an efficient backup driver/prizemaster that can basically take the night shifts.

As far as daily ship life goes: I would say normal ship routine could be::

Everyone works during the daytime hours. Basically, Sunrise-Sunset. At Sunset dinner and rum rations are served and entertainment begins. Then we shorten sail and one officer and 3-5 of crew take the first anchor watch, to be replaced after 4 hours by another officer and crew. This arrangement will be adjusted as the ship is more fully manned, but we could return to it, say, if a prize were taken and both ships are running with partial crews.

Punishment to be handled as follows:

Venal Infractions (i.e. failing a job check) - Loss of rum ration, confined below decks during the meal and entertainment, assigned to cleaning the head/bilges, etc.

For Greater or Repeated Infractions - A tribunal of officers convene a "drumhead" court once a week, the cases are presented, judgements made and administer punishments. These may range from floggings all the way to hanging, for very serious violations.

Tylos actually has a profession sailor of +8 so he can help with the wheel if needed.

Well, in the compact I made earlier, two comments on punishment related things were

Betrayal , be it desertion in battle or aiding the enemy after one has sworn to serve shall be punished by marooning on a small waterless island. One knife or noose shall be left as 'Traitor's mercy'.

Violence between crewmembers is best settled off shore, but should a duel or fight be desired between two parties, the Circle shall arrange a contest. After said contest is settled, the two parties should move on. Fighting while on task is subject to bilgework, a dunk from the yard arm to cool off, or other punishment.

Xanxan plans to work as part of the crew on and off (Though he ain't, despite Callum's teasing, hitting the bilges anytime soon). It's good for crew relations, lets him get to know them and what they're capable of, and lets him teach any rookies the ropes so to speak.

I'm good with a split shift, night and day to get us to Blood cove quicker, but we can try it daylight only if folks prefer: I'd still suggest a nightwatch/patrol.

Sounds good everyone. Yeah going forward you guys don't need to worry about specific day to day activities. It can be assumed that you're helping the crew as needed but not to the point of needing to worry about Fatigue or making checks, etc. Rank hath its privleges and all that, the AP doesn't concern itself going forward with the mundane details like it did in the first part. So long as you have the crew numbers you need, it just boils down to Sailing checks as needed.

Alrighty I'll have the update posted soon.