BzAli's page

My players certainly know where Harrigan lives, but so far the political consequences prevent them from launching a preemptive strike. Remember, nobody knows he's a Chelish agent. For all the Council knows, he's just gotten lucky lately. If the PC's suddenly decide to launch a majorninvasion against a Free Captain and member of the Brotherhood, Kerdak Bonefist would have to take action. Most of the neutral pirate lords would side with Kerdak, if nothing else then because such renegade actions are a threath to all... if they go for Harrigan today, what's to prevent them from going for Hardluck Masey tomorrow?
Even their allies, notably Tessa, would likely abandon them. She doesn't know Harrigan is involved with anything, and to her knowledge, his rivalry with the PC's is a sideshow to the real threath.
When Harrigan moves and thus break the Code, he's a legal target. But not before.

Our Mans Promise was converted into 5 length, 1 height, 1 wide. Then we added 1 castle at front and rear. That's a total of 7 hull locations. This means they're no match for dedicated warships, like the Dominator, but with a broadside of 10 ballistas (they've invested quite heavily in their ship) they are able to outfight most merchants and light escorts.

There's a few NPC's who'll be important later on. Befriending, killing or otherwise seriously interacting with these will require some rewriting of the later parts:

It'll be to early for them to entrench themself permanently. If they set up a base, it should be kept minor and relatively unimportant. Apart from that, have fun!

The rules say not to bother with crew. It's assumed that crew killed are replaced by 'volunteers' from the captured ship.

Personally, I kill off NPC-crew based on how well the PC's did in their main fight. If they slaughtered the enemy captain and officers in 2-3 rounds, they'll lose d4 crewmembers. Longer fights, and I roll d6, d8, etc. If they withdraw, I'll go way higher (they left more then 30 men onboard the Dominator in a later fight).

On the Mans Promise, it's assumed that no named NPC's are killed. In this case, it's important because they have interacted with these NPC's, and their attitude is important. Later on, I would recommend you kill of nameless crewmen as you deem necessary, but save the named ones, those they know and care about, for dramatic moments.

If they have to many allies among the crew, and you think the end-fight will be to easy, the boarding og Mans Promise is a good time to sort it out. Kill off 2 of their allies, and have them replaced by Harrigan-loyal captured crewmen.

We're currently running Island of Empty Eyes (book 4), and so far I'm averaging 1 kill pr. session. We're using hero points, and they've paid for a couple of raise deads, so only 1 PC has actually been replaced. But the island so far has claimed 6 deaths, which is worse than book 1 (which 'only' claimed 5). :)

Yes, it's a brutal campaign. I really recommend hero points to give a fighting chance. :)

I usually describe roleplaying to neewcomers by comparing it to theatre:

In theatre/movies, the actors has all the lines, behaviour and decision, and try to create a personality from that point.
In roleplaying, you have (or create) a personality, and make up all the lines, decisions and behavior from that point.

All the rules and such are secondary to the roleplaying, and I would go very easy on the rules with newcomers.

I'm a GM, and I simply let my players start a new character at the exact same level, with the same xp as everyone else, but with starting equipment bought according to WBL guidelines. My players share loot the communistic way (to each according to his needs), so some PCs have more loot than others, but most are over WBL. So the wealth-hit is the only 'punishment' we have.

We also enforce the rule that all gear (except plot-relevant quest items) on a dead PC is lost. Either sent home to relatives or sent to the grave with the PC.

Our reasoning is that the game is supposed to be fun. If you, for whatever reason, is not enjoying your current character, then switch! It shouldn't be to often, that would ruin continuity and the story, but rather retire an unwanted character than be stuck with an un-fun character. Secondly, this is a roleplaying game. Players should be expected, both in combat and out of combat, to behave as they imagine their character would. If someone wants ti play a raging berserker, who charges into battle regardless of own safety, then they shouldn't be Punished for it. Likewise, one of my players enjoy playing a coward. He'll be in the frontline untill he is down to about 2/3 of his HP, and will then retreat and spend a couple of rounds drinking healing potions. The rest of the party of course runs a greater risk of dying, so would in effect be punished for his playing style.

This is one of the things that are not explained in details, and where we each have to make our own decisions.

My take is that Free Captain means you're recognised as a 'legal' pirate by the Hurricane King. This means that if other pirates attempt to attack you, the king will be pretty pissed, and perhaps put a bounty on the attackers head. He might even decide to hunt you down himself.

On the other hand, if you're not a Free Captain, you're fair game. Everyone can attempt to take your ship, and you only have your own abilities for defence.

Furthermore, it's my understanding that the Schackles work like a feudal system. A Free Captain can extend his/her protection to other ships, threathening vengeance if people dare mess with them. So if you're sailing under Tessa Fairwinds banner, and is attacked by someone, the HUrricane King might not care, but Tessa will have to punish the attacker to preserve her good name and reputation.

So once the players have become Free Captains, they're technicaly safe from other pirates... that is, as far as pirates respect the law, and as long as other pirates are afraid of the Hurricane King. Some might believe they can get away with a quick attack anyway.
They could extend their protection to other ships, such as equipping captured ships as pirates in their own right, but the Hurricane King doesn't care, and it will be up to the PC's to enforce their protection of subordinate ships.

I'm currently running Tempest Rising, and my players are in the middle of the Regatta. I feel that the end as written in the AP is pretty lame, and in fact very much an anti-climax. So I've prepared the following end instead. Comments, ideas and criticism is very welcome. I'll post more when I've tested the race on my players.

I'm running the encounters as outlined, but changing the final leg to the following;

Start.
I'll set up the PC's and the Wormwood so the PC's have 20 encounters to the goalline. The Wormwood will start at a distance of 10+PC's race score (If the PC's have a race score of 17, the PC's will still have 20 encounters to go, but the Wormwood will have 27. If the PC's have done poorly, and only have a race score of 6, the PC's have 20 to go, the Wormwood will have 16).

Encounters
I'm using the chase rules, with the following encounter. Each encounter also have a target number for the Wormwood. If I roll this on a d20, the Wormwood will advance 1 square in this encounter. If they fail the skill check, the PC's will not advance this round

*Superstitous sailors refuse to sail on, after a dead sea gull drops on the deck. Knowledge (religion) DC 20 to convince them this doesn't matter. Wormwood: 8+

* A maelstroem suddenly appears in front of the ship. Knowledge (nature) DC 20 to know how to surf the edges. Wormwood: 7+

* Weird magic effects threathen to rip the sails apart. Knowledge (arcana) DC 20 to dispel them. Wormwood: 9+

* The wheel is stuck. Disable Device DC 15 to repair it. Wormwood: 10+

* A reef is close to the surface. Perception DC 28 to spot it in time. If failed, the ship takes 8d8 in addition to not advancing. Wormwood:9+

*The rigging is in disorder. 2x climb DC 20, falling damage to the PC if the second check is failed. Wormwood:13+

* An officer is required in the other end of the ship to defuse a complicated situation. Acrobatics DC 20 to get there quickly. Wormwood:10+

* Danger straight ahead. Sailing DC 30 to avoid it. Wormwood:14+

*Man overboard. Spend 2 rounds to pick him up. The PC's can chose to sail on and automaticly advance this round, but this might affect crew loyalty. Wormwood:12+

* The crew despairs in the foul weather. Diplomacy or Intimidate DC 30 to convince them to go on. Wormwood:12+

* Torn rigging and sails trap a PC. Automatic advance, but a random PC is unable to assist in future encounters, untill he has succeded at a DC 20 escape artist (one check pr. encounter). Wormwood:6+

* A group of hostile Orcas delay the ship. Sail around (no advance this encounter), or fight 5 orcas. If they're not defeated in 5 combat rounds, the ship is delayed and does not advance this round. Wormwood: 12+

* A random PC is swept overboard by a freak wave. Swim DC 20 in order not to delay the ship by forcing it to mount a rescue operation. Wormwood:13+

* A ballista is torn lose, and rolls across the deck. Reflex save DC 15 to get out of the way (failure: 5d6 damage). Wormwood:8+

* 2 crewmembers pick this time to start a fight. Intimidate DC 20 to get them and their mates back to work. The situation is to heated to use diplomacy. Wormwood: 7+

As said, comments are very welcome, as are additional ideas for encounters.

For the first couple of sessions, when having a ship was new and crew was scarce, I played 1 or 2 shipboard roleplaying situations. Something that required the new captain (and officers, since my PC's ran it by group consensus rather than dictatorship) to step up and make decisions.
Things like deserting crew members, murder between the opposing sides from the mutiny, gambling belowdecks (what, is that STILL illegal), the guard sleeping on duty, dissatisfaction with plunder divivde, potentially lethal disagrements between 'old hands' and newly pressganged sailors.
This served both to pace down the journeys, to give the players an opportinity to roleplay ship officers, and to set the mood for what kind of pirate vessel they wanted to run.

Later on, I had at the least one potential battle on each journey. That is, they sighted a ship, but could of course decide not to give chase.

Now, in AP 3, I'll let a week of journey pass without incident. Longer than that, and the crew starts to get restless, leading to various troubles (mainly roleplaying situations, only combat if the PC's escalate).

My crew just took the Promise. They are already planning the mutiny when we finished last session. I am debating if I should have the storm hit before morning triggering working through the storm and Grindylowes taking a couple of crew members. Or let the morning bell ring when they are hoping to get thier conflict underway.

They are 2nd Level there are 6 of them.
Druid
Rogue
Bard
Barbarian/fighter
Sorceror
Cleric

They have divided the crew with just one or two more committed to Plugg than them. They intend on getting to deck securing Sandara (who Plugg has with the officers as leverage). And making a go for it.

With that number of PC's, be aware that they'll most likely rip Plugg and Scourge apart. Even with the Plugg and Scourge a few levels ahead, the sheer number of PC-actions against NPC-actions means the fight will be over soon.

A way to even the odds a bit would be to have a few of the friendly NPC's be taken by Grindylows. That way you'll have a few spare hostile NPC's to add to the fight.

There will be less of this as the players progress and grow stronger (higher level), but throughout the AP, they will continue to meet people who are more powerfull and dangerous than them. Somethings are not meant to be fought, and allways jumping to action (be that fighting, breaking in or diving in) will certainly lead to more player deaths.

This AP is set in a living world, where high-level enemies (and allies) live side by side with level-appropiate encounters. You'll only be forced to fight the level-appropiate ones, but you can choose to challenge things way out of your league, and some of these things will kill you if you do.

Preperation and common sense is going to help you, lack of these is going to kill you. Welcome to a pirates life.

My players captured the Rock by force, and later fought their way past the Dominator, leaving several dead and dying crewmen behind.

Once they've had a chance to move their ships to a new haven, I'll have the Chelian Navy raid it, based on information gained from interrogating prisoners.. that'll teach them not to leave their own wounded behind. :)

For those running Skulls and Schackles with FaSB-rules, I offer my excell-spreadsheet to quickly build FaSB-ships on the fly. Just type in a few key numbers, and you have a fully stat'ed FaSB-ship. It even comes with possibilities to change wind, weather gauge etc., and calculate everything from to-hit to speed accordingly:

link

There's a few house-rules in the sheet, but only text-wise, nothing in the numbers or calculations. I'll be happy to explain the reasoning for the numbers in the cases where I had to make assumptions.

I'd take away their extra ships. That could be done either by treachery form within, where one of the subordinate captains decided to strike out on his own, or by external threaths. The Chelian navy could decide to take revenge for the loss of Dominator, and send a squadron of heavy warships against Tidewater Rock. If the PC's are away on their own, you could have them return to a destroyed Tidewater, with the crew hanging as a warning, and the bay full of burned wrecks.

I try to give countries a real-life language. One country might be French-inspired, so I use actual French names for both characters and cities. List of French names and cities are pretty easy to google.

Have a German-inspired country, an Italian-inspired one, etc. Just avoid using wellknown names, and you can easily have a list of prepared cities. Your players might think Berlin is a lame name, but I'm very certain you can easily find 100 of German villages and such they've never heard of.

Likewise with characters; Gunther, Lothar, Jürgen, Swein, Heinrich, Dieter, Erich... it's easy to find a list of German names, and you are certain they can be pronounced by human toungues. And your players might recognize some of them, but that just makes it easier to remember.

An added benefit is consistency; the names of characters and places from the same area have similar sounds, which is just as it should be. It also means that once your PC's meet a new guy, they'll be able to guess his country of origin, which again makes it believable.

If the cleric had killed the sheriff, that could in itself justify an alignment change to evil, but not a fall from the grace of Pharasma.

I think the dealbreaker is that the cleric used his holy dagger, and performed the murder in the name of Pharasma. Not only is he inventing his own religious ritual, but the ritual in question is not in line with the deitys philosophy. I'd say that becoming ex-cleric is perfectly fine.

I'd then allow the player to regain his powers. Perhaps sent him a dream, in which he is shown some suitable quest, after which he'll regain his clerical powers. The alignment change can be undone through roleplaying remorse of the act, and off course abstaining from similar acts in the future.

If you don't want to mess around with quests and roleplaying, he could seek out a cleric to cast Atonement... allthough that cleric could then assign a quest to prove the sinners willingness to return to the light of Pharasma.

I'd allow a knowledge (religion) roll, with a low DC, to see if the cleric remebers that the act he is about to commit is against his deitys will. Of course, that's only helpfull in the future, and won't make the murder allready commited undone.

My players have been selling a few ships in Bloodcove, unsquibbed. After 3 sales, Bloodcove authorities politely informed them that they had received a complaint from the Cheliax and Andorran consuls regarding the sale of captured vessels. So the Bloodcove authorities asked the PC's to start squibbing ships, and imposed a tax on shipselling untill it was done.

In my group, I decided that the crew was divided in their loyalties based on the characters CHA-scores and how much they'd be influencing on the Wormwood.
Then the players discussed it among themself, but everybody know who'd have the most swords to command, should it come to blows.

Finally, having reached a dead-end, the players (totally in character for their Chaotic characters, I might add) decided to play dice for the ship instead of fighting another battle, which would have left them with to little crew to sail anywhere.

I guess it's mainly a matter of group dynamics. In my gaming group, we had before even starting decided that while everybody was fine with playing evil characters, we would not accept serious inter-party fighting or betrayal. That just kills the spirit and has the potential to make it unfun. And playing dice for your ship seems in the pirate-spirit. So the main point is, as allways, make sure your group agress what kind of game you'll be playing, and even potentially difficult situations play out nicely.

If the PC's have a flying ship, I'd say that it was their just reward for investing in it. So any benefits gained from it seems only fair.

However, the race takes place partly in the Eye, and partly outside it. Parts E and F are about water hazards. I'd say a sailing ship could bypass these parts, in game terms I'd give them a race score as if they'd passed all tests, and proparbly a bonus as well. +2 pr. encounter seems in order.G is about wind, and I'd imagine it's more difficult to fly against the wind, than to tack in water.
Part H specificly requires competitors to sail through Iris' Splinters. It'll be up to you to decide if flying through them counts, but in these cases, simple give Hirgenzosk the ability to jump out of water (perhaps saying it's a giant Shark instead of a Turtle, but keep all stats and the like... just give it the ability to jump out of water in addition to everything it can allready do).

I and J takes place in the Eye. I'd deem it impossible to fly in a Tornado, they'll have to land in these parts.
K isn't depending on them being in water at all, and neither is L.

Actually, in the last parts of the race, you could deduct race points for not being in water, as their opponents would have the benefit of both current and wind, whereas a flying ship only depends on wind.

During storm hazards, replace sailing-check with fly-checks, remembering the -12 penalty for winds (Core page 439), as well as whatever comes from being Colossal.

Or, you could just have the Master of the Gale outlaw flying, meaning they'll risk disqualification (of course not, since they have to win, but they won't know that) if they fly anyway.

There's a difference between the motivation of the players and the characters.

For the characters, what you say could be one way of looking at it. They could be random victims, who just happenede to be in Port Peril, the greatest pirate city of the entire world. A city far removed from anything else of interest, with only the fact that it holds the largest concentration of pirates making it unique.

It is allways the players responsibility to make characters that are interested in following the plot. The first time any adventurer picks up a +1 sword as loot, he could chose to sell it and live his entire life as a wealthy man (a trained hireling earns 3 sp pr. day. Let's say 1 gp pr. 3 days. A +1 sword sells for 1150 gp. Thats more than 3000 days work!). But the player have created a character with a greater motivation than making 3000 days wages. He has created an adventurer. So the character have another motivation, and keeps on adventuring.

The first time an adventuring companion dies, a very sensible response would be: "screw this, this is to dangerous, I'm off to live the rest of my long and peacefull life as a farmer." But again, the player have created a character that is not (overtly) afraid of danger, and sticks in the dangerous and deadly adventuring profession.

A player playing S&S could of course chose to play a LG paladin. But then he has created a character with very little interest in the AP, and his GM and co-players chould advice against it. It's not like it's a secret that this AP is about pirates and piracy! Or at least, it shouldn't be.

So instead of creating characters that are surprised to find themself pressganged, and who decide to stop being pirates as soon as they get the chance, make characters who are either:
a) actively seeking to become pirates. And who have journeyed to Port Peril in order to enlist on a pirate ship, but just became pressganged by a s#+*ty captain before they got to enlist with the captain of their dreams.
b) Embrace the pirates life when they meet it. They might be innocent fishermen, or knowledgeseeking scholars, or landlubbers in the wrong tavern at the wrong time, but then they decide to become pirates since the opportinity presents themself.

In short, players should create characters that work with the story, instead of against it. Creating a character is not just about stats and classes, but also about personality and motivation.

There's nothing wrong with deciding to retailor S&S to good'ish characters. There's something wrong with creating a good'ish character knowing the set-up isn't suited for one.

Or you could ask them.

Without giving away to much, you could ask the other players: "hey guys, my next character will be holding back some info, and will keep secrets from the rest of you. Do you want to know these secrets out of character, and share a laugh, or do you want to have them revealed to youa s players at the same time they are revealed to your characters."

I'm planning for military ships in my campaign to have a onboard ships wizard, specialized in counterspelling.

I've modified my spreadsheet. It now contains drop-down menus, hull material, sail materiale. As before, most of it can be left as it is (normal hulls, normal riggings, medium load, no weather gauge, mates proficient in siege weapons, captain and navigator not), but you can now alter these choices if you so desire.

I haven't made any effort at making it look good. I'm much more into functionality than looks. :)

Link

Countercheat!

Roll your own dice behind your DM's screen, and add +4 when targetting a cheater...

Our Mans Promise is 5 hull locations at waterlevel, +2 for front and aft castle. Then we add 4 rigging locations, and we have a ship.

We've been through two naval battles, and they worked fine. They were much more enjoyable than the S&S-ones, and in one of them a ship actually sank (something which was almost impossible in S&S).

I spent about 20 minutes building a quick excel-sheet for punching in enemy ships. It takes about 2 minutes to design a ship for the PC's to fight. All the detailed stuff is only important for ships they're going to use, so we just skip that for the prey. Give them a number of hull and rigging locations, make up some quick stats for officers (BAB, dex, sailing modifier, important skills), and the rest is pretty simple calculations, which excell will do for you. Even the officer stats can be easily assumed just from giving them a level (I go with lvl+8 for sailing and other skills, lvl-1 for BAB, and have a fixed dex modifier of 0-2, depending on position).

So basicly I decide on number of locations, level of enemy officers, and weapons. Them the ship is ready to go!

As I read it, you pay for the imposition every time you use it. If you buy Walk the Plank, then that's a one-shot deal. If you want to use it again later, you'll have to pay for it again.

The characters can gain disrepute without gaining Infamy. So even if they've reached the maximum 5 Infamy from Bloodcove, they can still gain disrepute from bragging in inns (and making their perform-checks). Just remember that thei Disrepute can't go higher than their Infamy.

Office Ninja, I'd say they could gain an additional 3 in that port. They have 8, gain 2, making it 10. From that point, they can gain an additional 5 (as they are in a port, where they haven't gained Infamy for this level), for a max. total of 15 before they have to find a new port.