Starting STAP

[Marcia Daniel]

Hey all,
I'm about to start an over-the-internet Savage Tide campaign, and am a little concerned about making sure that the party is ready for what looks to be a difficult game. There will be 6 or 7 players. So here's some questions:
1) For those of you who determine stats by using buy-in points, what's a good number of points to make sure they've got good enough stats?
2) I was also thinking about letting them take their Sasserine regional feats for free and maybe giving them four or five extra skill points to spend on naval-related skills. Has anyone else done anything like this? Did it work?
3) I'm going to be doing it over the internet with OpenRPG. This will be my first time using that program. Has anyone used it before and have tips? Anyone know where I could download some good OpenRPG minis appropriate to STAP?
4) Are there any other things that a DM starting up the Savage Tide should know?
Thanks a lot

[Paolo]

I will try the first 2 :)

1) I really like 28 point-buy. It's just a notch above the standard pts to give your PCs an edge without making them dominate everything they see. It can turn the 15,14,13,12,10,8 elite array into 16,14,14,12,10,8 which boosts two of your higher ability mods by +1 each while keeping the moderately weak areas weak. Also, with your larger than average party, they don't each need to be a god.

2) I did the same thing with the feats. They are all so specific that they help give flavor without being overpowering. I also give out 2 extra skill points each level (x4 at level 1). It helps PCs feel okay about spending their precious few points on flavor or unorthodox skills. Just remember they can't have more ranks than level+3, so again it shouldn't be overpowering. I don't think every PC needs to be naval-oriented, but you could certainly encourage one or two to pick up some sailing skills.

4) Okay, one thing about this question... Read the Obits thread. There are some killer encounters that you should be ready for.

Hope that helped :)
Paolo

[cthulhu_waits]

Stress to them that they'll have to play smart and tactical. If something seems like a killer encounter, it probably is and they should run.

I don't give them extra skill points, though there's nothing wrong with that. What I have done is institute a houserule where 5 ranks in Profession (Sailor) gives a +2 to Balance, Climb, and Use Rope while onboard a ship. That helps a bit.

Good luck and let us know how it turns out! I am getting ready to start The Bullywug Gambit and cannot wait for those savage critters. (And hopefully a savage PC!)

[Fiendish Dire Weasel]

1) We used a stat rolling that was very liberal. Roll 4d6, reroll ones. Roll 7 times, take best 6. If you do a point buy, do it high. I also put mine on a side quest where they started as sailors on a boat and sailed to Sasserine, and they all started at Lvl 2.

2) As already experienced professional sailors, I gave everyone a job on the ship based on their class and character personality and such. Each job had a few relevant skills associated with it, and I gave them each 5 free skill points to assign to those relevant skills. For example, we had a ship's navigator. That PC was allowed 5 skill point to put into Knowledge (Geography), Knowledge (Navigation), or Profession (Sailor), as long as they didn't go over the minimum skill points for a Lvl2 character. Those were forever after class skills for that character as well. This is a very heavily skill-based campaign (or at least it is the way I'm running it), so I felt it was justified.

I'm using Stormwrack, and adding a lot of aquatic encounters and ship battles to the base story line to play up the nautical aspect of the game more, with comparatively less focus on the land-stuff, which really seems to dominate the AP as written (mostly because they can't expect everyone playing to have Stormwrack necessarily). My view is how many chances do you get in most D&D games to see the aquatic stuff? Aquatic Elves are almost never viable player race because of their attachment to the sea. Dread Pirate and/or Legendary Captain is almost never a viable prestige class because most of it's coolness is lost when you step off a boat. Most of the ship rules and swim speeds and stuff are wasted in most campaigns. I wanted this campaign to be different, so I'm playing all of that up as much as possible.

It has worked very well for me. Like you as well, I have a pretty large party, 8 PC's. Having them all start on a ship together served the purposes of setting the theme for the AP, giving them all a reason to work together and be acquainted with each other's abilities, to fight sahaugin on the first night and nurse their damaged ship into Sasserine (which the captain then retired and sold the ship, making them suddenly unemployed at just the opportune moment), and so on.

I have increased the encounters slightly, but I'm in Bullywug's Gambit, and the level thing has pretty much taken care of itself. The party is entering Vandeboren Manor at Lvl4 or 5. The adjustments seem to have been about right. I've had one PC death, and many, MANY close calls. Many of those close calls would also have been deaths if not for the healing aura of the Dragon Shaman in the party. Saved a guy tonight who was at -9 in fact. So it's scary enough to keep the party focused and on their toes; yet not so deadly that people lose interest or get frustrated, not to mention sick of rolling up new characters every other session. Everyone seems to be having a great time.

3) No relevant experience.

4) What was already mentioned about the Obits thread is dead on. Pun intended. :) Just because you have a big party, don't feel the need to inflate everything too terribly much. If you DO inflate, do it by adding more creatures, not by making the existing ones nastier (generally). You can add a hit die here or there, but mostly you just want more zombies/pirates/thieves. For example, in the Parrot Island encounter, I had 16 zombies instead of the written 12, but I grouped them into bigger groups. Instead of the PC's encountering 3 at a time, they found 5 twice, and then 6 with the huevuca for the big nasty encounter of the night. That fight ended up being a minor disappointment, because the cleric rolled really well on his turn undead roll and turned all the zombies, leaving only the huecuva, who was then grappled/pinned, and poked repeatedly with the silver dagger then had just found until dead, while the rest of the party finished off the cowering zombies.

The other thing I would recommend is that you buy Stormwrack before you start. Make sure your characters know this is an aquatic/sailing/piratey campaign, and that they should consider the races and stuff from Stormwrack. You might get some Shoal Halflings, or Aventi, or Aquatic Elves, or even a Water Genasi like we have, in the game, and that's always cool. Read up on Stormwrack, and the DMG section dealing with water environments. Before you set out to sea, become really familiar with the special rules of ship combat.

Think about how you might have different skills work underwater. For example, water transmits sound very well, but very diffusely. Therefore, I've ruled that you get a +5 to listen checks in water to hear the sound, but a -5 to tell what the sound is, or what direction it's coming from. Stuff like that.

Just food for thought. Use what you like, ignore what you don't. :)

[Marcia Daniel]

Ooh, I like the idea of a prelude adventure, and will probably steal yours, Fiendish Dire Weasel. What I might do, though, is start everyone out as one of the NPC classes (adept, aristocrat, commoner, expert, warrior) and tell them they can only spend skill points on naval skills (broadly construed, so that balance and climb count). We RP for a bit and then run an attempted pirate attack (give the captain of the PC's ship lots of ranks in profession sailor and put the PCs in a faster boat to put the odds in their favor). After this prelude, they arrive in Sasserine and "level up" to first level regular PC classes. The captain sells the ship, pays everyone the max for the starting gold for their class, and leaves them to their own devices. PCs get skill points for new PC classes as if they were first level characters (so x4), and can put the skills in anything they want (we'll say they were practicing/studying those skills in their spare time on the boat and it just now all catches up with them). That way they'll get a few extra hp, some extra skills, and some extra money to spend at the beginning. Bam, an extra leg up, but it doesn't feel like they got it for free.

Has anyone ever done this before? I guess I'm trying to come up with the equivalent of starting with 0-level characters that cropped up a couple of times in 2nd ed.

I also have Stormwrack, and you make a good point...when else are you going to get to use it??

As for the free feats, maybe what I'll do is PCs who are from Sasserine will get their special feats, and everyone else gets a free skill focus for one of their maritime skills. Again, it's something that's so specific that shouldn't be overpowering, but should also be at least kind of useful at some point.

I'll probably go with the 28 point buy, in that case, like Paolo suggested. I usually like rolling dice, but in this case I'm playing over the internet and one or two of the guys I don't know very well. Point buy will help avoid any cheating problems.

I also will probably institute your house rule, Cthlulu, and provide the caveat emptor at the beginning...

This is going to be pretty sweet.

[Keno]

We have 5 players playing on the web and we've not really had any problems with the adventure, although we did get a little bogged down at one point when a couple of characters came close to dying in the first adventure.

The group is really intelligent players, and have complimented each other well, so that of course helps. And a couple critical hit max damage rolls at crucial points in tough battles have been life savers for the players, and an annoyance for me ;) I want to kill someone, after all, and these narrow escapes are getting to be a little too frequent.