LoFro The Pirate's page

I mean, I think Brilliant Energy is a wildly overpriced property anyway... Maybe they just decided to eyeball it rather than follow the formula. But it's hard to tell.

Mainly I just feel bad for my player... He traded in a +2 evil outsider bane bow for this, but this campaign (Savage Tide) gets more and more demon-heavy as we go along. Brilliant energy doesn't actually do anything against most demons, since they're just a pile of natural armor...

I'm currently running the Savage Tide adventure path, which includes the players getting their hands on a pirate ship which becomes their home for most of the AP. While I still have a few levels until they actually get their ship, I'm trying to prepare for the eventual ship combats that will follow - and I am extremely confused.

It looks like there are two completely different sets of ship combat rules available for Pathfinder - one in the Game Mastery Guide, and one in Ultimate Combat. The big issue for me is that the statistics - including the potential combat capability of the ships - is extremely different depending on which system we're using.

For reference, the PC's ship will be using the Sailing Ship stats.

According to the GMG, a sailing ship has AC 6, 125 hp, +6 to saves, moves at 60 feet, deals 3d6+12 damage on a ram, and has a minimum crew of 20 and a maximum crew of 50 + 120 passengers. It also has room for a total of two weapons - two siege engines or one siege engine and a ram.

According to UC, a sailing ship has AC 2, 900 hp, +0 to saves, has a maximum move speed of 180 feet, deals 8d8 damage on a ram, has a crew of 20 and can carry 200 more passengers. It also has room for either 20 (!) Large siege engines or 6 Huge ones.

These stats, as far as I can tell, refer to exactly the same kind of ship from the core book, but have extremely different statistics. I have no idea which ones to use. Can anyone help me unpack this?

Well, keep in mind, that's just the "magic item shop." RAW also says each community will have a certain number of more expensive items available, so that's one thing to keep in mind; they can also still get NPCs to make things custom for them, without going through a magic item shop (which, I believe, represents items "on hand.")

If they're complaining because they can't get the perfect items for uber-optimization, tell them that the game has already provided a source for those items - it's called Craft Wondrous Item.

(That said, as DM, it's probably a good idea to ask for "wish lists" from your players, and include some of those things in your encounter treasures.)