Arrrrrrr, walk the plank, scallywag and all that. This be pirates and so do ye be.
Impositions:
Disgraceful Impositions:
Yes, Sir!: For the next hour, the PCs’ crew completes any mundane tasks they’re assigned in half the expected time. This typically relates to Craft and Profession (sailor) checks made to prepare, maintain, or repair the ship, and cannot be applied to combat or more complex deeds like crafting magic items. Costs 2 Disrepute.
Captain’s Orders!: As a standard action, a PC on board her ship can cast fog cloud, heroism, make whole, quench, or whispering wind with a caster level equal to her character level. Costs 5 Disrepute.
Walk the Plank!: The PCs may sacrifice one crew member or prisoner to grant themselves and their crew one of two bonuses: either a +2 bonus on all skill checks or a +2 bonus on attack rolls. These bonuses only apply while on board the PCs’ ship and last until either the next day or when the captain leaves the ship. If a sacrificed character is returned to life, the PCs and their crew members take a –2 penalty on both skill checks and attack rolls for 1 day. Costs 5 Disrepute.
Get Up, You Dogs!: Every PC and allied character on the deck of the PCs’ ship is affected as per the spell cure light wounds, as if cast by a cleric of the PCs’ average party level. This imposition can only be used once per week. Costs 10 Disrepute.
Despicable Impositions:
5: Lashings!: Your ship's speed doubles for 1 day.
5: Shiver Me Timbers!: While on board their ship, the PCs and their entire crew can reroll initiative or roll initiative in what would otherwise be a surprise round. The benefit of this imposition can be used immediately, but only once per week.
10: Besmara’s Blessings!: As a standard action, a PC on board her ship can cast animate rope, control water, remove curse, remove disease, or water breathing with a caster level equal to her character level.
10: Dead Men Tell No Tales!: While on board their ship, the PCs can use this imposition to automatically confirm a threatened critical hit.
Male hobgoblin Magus 11 |7/92 HP | AC 25, touch 17, flatfoot 17 (29,21,23 with magic shield, 5 DR with damage shield) | fort +12, reflex+11,will +9| init +6 | bab +8| 11/11 arcane pool |
Ace voices his concern "Shouldn't we spend some of the money to make sure the ship is ship-shape for the race?"
Male Orc Bloodrager (Primalist) 9 | Dead, essentially.
Well, going by this, we could get Rapid-Deploy Sails and Silk Sails, for a total of 25% of the ship's cost. If the Devil's Pallor costs the same as a regular Warship (25,000 gp), that would be 6250 gp. I say we take it out of the party fund.
Also, anything that boosts Profession (sailor) checks would be nice. Odan, didn't you say you had a way to give someone more ranks in a skill?
Oh, and Ixrul, whip me up a cracked Incandescent Blue Sphere stone, +1 to Prof. Sailor. 100 gp, DC 22.
Dwarf | Barbarian 2 | Rage 2/2 | HD 2/2 | HP 6/25 | AC 15 | S6, D2, C5, I-1, W3, C1 | PP 15 | Status: Normal | Insp: Yes
Kind of. I have two potential ways to increase your skills. 1) I can let you rearrange your skill points so you can make one skill maximized. Depending on how you've purchased your skills, this can cause some massive penalties for up to 9 days (your level), so it's best to use if we know we won't face anything for a while, like an ocean voyage. I've set my self up with my last rearrangement so that all my skills points at level 9 were put into a single skill; I will not be effected by the penalty if we need a single skill maxed out. 2) I can make it so that four of us can share the skill ranks for a single skill for everyone else effected by the power.
To see how these work, the first is Psychic Reformation and the second is Skills as One. Note that the limited number of targets on the second does not apply to me.
Male Orc Bloodrager (Primalist) 9 | Dead, essentially.
This level I put 3 ranks in Intimidate and one in Perception, which is enough to max my Prof Sailor. So I would only need to take one level of penalties.
Also, I have the Besmara's Blessing trait, which lets me reroll one Prof Sailor check per week. I think I'm the best choice for this.
Do it two days before the race so that I'll have time to recover. Before then, I'll do my usual checks for gathering crew and Infamy.
Dwarf | Barbarian 2 | Rage 2/2 | HD 2/2 | HP 6/25 | AC 15 | S6, D2, C5, I-1, W3, C1 | PP 15 | Status: Normal | Insp: Yes
Oops. I said level 9 earlier, thinking we were one level higher than we actually are. Also to note, if you rearrange only your most recent level, you do not take penalties. Penalties are only for each level you rearrange beyond the most recent.
Can we aid another on the sailing checks during the race?
Is there anything that lets us ignore bad weather while sailing? Maybe we can cause a storm for other ships and ignore it for ourselves. Or have the wind go in the wrong direction and ignore that for ourselves.
Male hobgoblin Magus 11 |7/92 HP | AC 25, touch 17, flatfoot 17 (29,21,23 with magic shield, 5 DR with damage shield) | fort +12, reflex+11,will +9| init +6 | bab +8| 11/11 arcane pool |
Go on, dont have time to look up crafting info, but when I do, pretend ace/ixrul crafted it with their free time
Male hobgoblin Magus 11 |7/92 HP | AC 25, touch 17, flatfoot 17 (29,21,23 with magic shield, 5 DR with damage shield) | fort +12, reflex+11,will +9| init +6 | bab +8| 11/11 arcane pool |
Male Human Monk 5 (Qinggong Master of Many Styles from the Sacred Mountain)/Fighter (Brawler) 3
Fast forward a week, and you're ready to race.
The morning greets you with an overcast sky and a brewing storm, rain already starting to fall heavily, slanted against the wind.
Tessa joins you on your ship.
"You got everything you need? I just wanted to with you good luck before you set sail."
Tessa is the only friend there to see you off, as you've made precious few in Port Peril, though Jrahk does catch a glimpse of his smoking hunk of man meat, Pierce Jerrel, winking at him from the crowd.
Male Orc Bloodrager (Primalist) 9 | Dead, essentially.
Jrahk ignores Pierce completely.
"We're ready. Thanks, Tessa."
He starts barking orders to the crew.
"Listen up, fleabags! Jrahk wants this ship to move faster than it ever has before, or you'll all be tied up and whipped until we hit bone!"
Lashings imposition.
"Sandra, be ready to slow down any ships that overtake us. Especially the Wormwood. Jrahk'll try to keep close enough to them for your spells to reach."
Male Human Monk 5 (Qinggong Master of Many Styles from the Sacred Mountain)/Fighter (Brawler) 3
Without making any further preparations, the crew of the Devil's Pallor awaits the start of the race.
Everyone waits with bated breath as the Master of Gales steps out onto a rocky promontory and stands with arms outstretched, wind whipping at his long, flowing beard.
Suddenly, a massive bolt of lightning crashes down from the sky, sending up a spray of steam that signals the start of the race!
When the smoke clears, the Master of Gales is gone, an albatross standing in his place. It takes off, and as it does so the wind goes into chaos. unnaturally shifting from north to east and back again, rocking the boats and threatening to foul them all together.
Male Human Monk 5 (Qinggong Master of Many Styles from the Sacred Mountain)/Fighter (Brawler) 3
As Jrahk turns the wheel, a ghostly apparition appears around him, binding his hands. He's still able to steer the ship, but barely.
Those looking at him from the outside recognize the ghost as Jalhazar, the captain of the Brine Banshee.
This is the first time this has been relevant, since you haven't had any ship combats for like this whole book. You have a -4 to all skill checks, saves, and ability checks while on board any ship.
Male Human Monk 5 (Qinggong Master of Many Styles from the Sacred Mountain)/Fighter (Brawler) 3
No no, the wheel isn't haunted. You are.
Remember this sequence of events? You basically f@~*ed yourself forever. Or, well, the duration of this race until you can make amends by un-desecrating the corpse.
Even with the potential +5 bonus from the wheel itself, that fails.
How bad is it?:1d100 ⇒ 73
Damage:8d8 ⇒ (7, 6, 1, 8, 6, 8, 6, 5) = 47
You veer off course, running your ship directly into the ram of the Bonny Witch, fouling its escape as well. You can see her captain standing in the driving rain trying to shout at you, and making obscene gestures with both hands.
Make more until you hit DC 25. Once you're out of this fustercluck, the rest of the PCs can start Aiding if they have the skills for future challenges.
Male Human Monk 5 (Qinggong Master of Many Styles from the Sacred Mountain)/Fighter (Brawler) 3
The Wheel's bonus only applies on certain checks, so don't apply it to everything going forward. Would you like Sandra to Bestow Insight at the next challenge?
The Devil's Pallor fights its way free of the melee and moves ahead, though not before a good half dozen ships get the lead on you, including the Wormwood.
Less than a mile from the start you hit your first challenge, the Silted Shrouds. This is an area of ever-shifting sandbars, impossible to map because of the wind and water being whipped up by the Eye of Abendego. Navigating this area is difficult.
You need to make four consecutive DC 25 Survival checks to navigate the Shrouds. If you have 5 ranks in Kn. Local or Geography, add a +2.
Alternately, you can have someone either fly or swim ahead of the ship if they have a fly or swim speed of 50 feet or more, and then they can make Perception checks (DC 25, no +2 from Knowledges) to guide you instead.
Male hobgoblin Magus 11 |7/92 HP | AC 25, touch 17, flatfoot 17 (29,21,23 with magic shield, 5 DR with damage shield) | fort +12, reflex+11,will +9| init +6 | bab +8| 11/11 arcane pool |
before I forget, I had cloak of the manta ray in mind, so assume they crafted it while waiting for the race, assuming Ace switches his gear while on board the ship
So, yeah, Ace dons the cape, and dives ahead to scout the area
Male Human Monk 5 (Qinggong Master of Many Styles from the Sacred Mountain)/Fighter (Brawler) 3
Well, roll Perception then. =)
Though it's probably best if Ixrul does it. Your Perception skill isn't good enough to reliably do this. You can attempt, though. I'll let you both try separately, since you're on different "routes". If either succeeds that round, it's a success.
Male hobgoblin Magus 11 |7/92 HP | AC 25, touch 17, flatfoot 17 (29,21,23 with magic shield, 5 DR with damage shield) | fort +12, reflex+11,will +9| init +6 | bab +8| 11/11 arcane pool |
Male Human Monk 5 (Qinggong Master of Many Styles from the Sacred Mountain)/Fighter (Brawler) 3
Yowza. That's bad. To speed things along:
Ace:3d20 ⇒ (17, 19, 10) = 46
Ixrul proves to be a surprisingly inept navigator for someone with the ship navigator job, and both he and Ace steer the ship directly into a sandbar.
Thankfully, Ace's mere presence prevents you from running aground entirely, and you merely scrape against the edge and have to backtrack to get back on course.
If you have an underwater scout, you can't run aground. Which is lucky for you guys!
Ace's sharp eyes lead you right for a while, but then fail him...but Ixrul finally picks up the slack and steers the ship away from danger.
Ixrul, make one last Perception check. If successful, you make it through.
Male Human Monk 5 (Qinggong Master of Many Styles from the Sacred Mountain)/Fighter (Brawler) 3
Ixrul's elven eyes chart a perfect course through the maze of the Silted Shrouds, and you navigate through without any further issue.
From here, it's smooth sailing for a while, nearly 20 miles of unbroken ocean, albeit slightly whipped by the Master of Gales' artificial storms. Unfortunately, that's not a good sign. You've seen none of the other ships except as specks in the distance for a while, even with the time saved by Ixrul's final navigation hitting a slipstream to speed you somewhat.
What's worse, up next are the Raker Shoals, a hazard well known by all who sail these seas, even newbies like you. The Shoals are a 40 mile long, 3 mile wide coral reef. Navigation is dangerous and difficult, especially at speed.
You could sail around it, but going forty miles out of your way would almost certainly lose you the race.
You have about 10 minutes to plot a course before you reach the reefs.
This is a DC 20 Kn. Geography check. You can use the Charts of the Fair Winds you got from Tessa for a 2 on this check. Results that exceed the DC are VERY GOOD here.
When you plot your course, decide how fast you're going to go. Your current maximum speed is 150 feet. Going slower makes avoiding any surprises much easier but, obviously, could harm your placing in the race.
