Soon my characters will begin The Bullywug Gambit, and I assume that they'll take a rowboat to and from Kraken's Cove. I have a feeling that when they are rushing back to Sasserine to save Lavinia from the depradations of Drevoraz and the bullywugs, they will want to row 24 hours a day, in 8 hour shifts. (There are four of them.) The adventure says they can do this, but it seems to me that it would be hard to get restful sleep in a rowboat. There is basically a five foot space for each character, IIRC. You're essentually sleeping while sitting up in the boat. I'm thinking there ought to be some penalties after doing this. Perhaps not as bad as being fatigued, but something along those lines. Anyone have any ideas on how to handle this?
It seems kind of harsh to penalize them for the circumstances of the module. That's no fun. You could say that they sleep fitfully, but once the action picks up in Sassarine, they're wide awake.
Or drop a hint that they should commandeer the Sea Wyvern...
Player: OK, I guess we'll start rowing back to Sassarine.
DM: It's a sailing ship. It doesn't have oars. Oh! You meant in the rowboat! I thought you meant that abandoned caravel in the harbor.
Player: .... Wait, we can do that?
:) Jamie
The problem with commandeering the Sea Wyvern, though, is the number of people with Proffesion (sailor) and the number of people in general. It takes at least a crew of 5 to sail a caravel and all of them must have ranks in Proffesion (sailor). Not to mention the DC 30 sailing check to get through the reefs surrounding Kraken's Cove.
My PCs rowed in shifts, with the vital spellcasters taking shorter two-4 hour shifts so they could get spells and what not.
You're right, the number of crew needed is problematic. (It's actually a crew of 7, but only one needs Profession: Sailor.) The DC shouldn't be a problem, though; James Jacobs said that there should be charts in the caves to make navigating the cove possible without checks.
Getting The Sea Wyvern Through The Reefs
It seems like a few DMs are letting the PCs borrow the Blue Nixie (with hired crew) for the trip, which I think is a pretty good idea. I don't remember if there's any reason it wasn't suggested in the adventure. Remember, the PCs are expecting to find Vanthus and bring him back, so they'll need to have room (a rowboat only has room for four).
Jamie
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I was one of those whose party of PC's took the Nixie. I warned them of the extreme difficulty of navigating the coral of the cove without maps, so they parked it outside and left Gut Tugger to guard the boat (yes, they killed Rowyn and convinced him to join them - side story)
Anyway, my party has 8 PC's and they are all good sailors, because I told them ahead of time what kind of adventure it would be and stressed to them the importance of it. I also started the campaign with them as hands aboard a small merchant pinnace, so it was in their storylines to be able to find their way around a boat.
Anyway, just so they wouldn't feel like they were wasting all those skill points, instead of having the maps negate the 12 DC30 Prof(Sailor) Checks, I instead said that the maps would allow them to find the best way through, and that would allow them to cut it down to 8 checks, at only DC 20, since they would be able to prepare for the next obstacle more efficiently.
It turns out that for my crew, 8 DC 20 checks in a caravel meant that our captain needed to not roll a 1 generally. All 7 of the other PC's made rolls to assist the captain in his skill check (each giving a +2), and then the caravel itself gives a +4 bonus to the skill. That's a total of +18 before the roll, and not even counting the captain's skill in Prof (Sailor) which was the highest in the group. In the end, it just meant that about half the crew would have to fail to assist in the roll just to force the captain to even make a roll in at all.
But obviously, this is not the average party of sailors, so of course not everyone will have the same scenario.
They were in a hurry to get back to save Lavinia from Drevoraz, so they sent the Water Shugenja (who's not so hot in a fight anyway) back to the Nixie in a rowboat, to meet back up with Gut Tugger, so he wouldn't think everyone else had died and desert. The rest of the Party high-tailed back to Sasserine with excellent wind to try to warn Lavinia, but of course they were just a little too late to prevent the Bullywugs from attacking the Manor. After they cleared that mess out, they sailed the Wyvern back out to Blood Bay along with Lavinia and the Ravens, as well as 3 or 4 cheap hirelings, so they could sail both boats back to Sasserine. I made both of those trips pretty uneventful, just because the party was split between the 2 boats (their skills were needed to sail both ships), and it would have been a pain in the arse to work out encounters for both ships and keep everything working smoothely. Plus, they'd already had a really long day. :)
I don't really think it's too harsh, actually. The module assumes that the PC's don't beat Drevoraz and Co. back to Sasserine, and the PCs are just trying to ensure they do that. PC's are penalized all the time based on circumstances in the adventure, it's just a way of throwing little wrinkles at them.
I don't think my PC's will be able to commandeer the Sea Wyvern, since they only have 4 people. They could take the Blue Nixie, but since they'd have to leave it unattended that's probably not such a good idea.
You're right, the number of crew needed is problematic. (It's actually a crew of 7, but only one needs Profession: Sailor.) The DC shouldn't be a problem, though; James Jacobs said that there should be charts in the caves to make navigating the cove possible without checks.
Getting The Sea Wyvern Through The Reefs
It seems like a few DMs are letting the PCs borrow the Blue Nixie (with hired crew) for the trip, which I think is a pretty good idea. I don't remember if there's any reason it wasn't suggested in the adventure. Remember, the PCs are expecting to find Vanthus and bring him back, so they'll need to have room (a rowboat only has room for four).
Jamie
Yeah, I'd read that too. I thought it was a neat idea that neither I or the PCs had thought of. They kept talking about summoning small water elementals to push them back to Sasserine, which in a level or two did start happening. That's a fun mental image.
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I made mine fight the whole Manor and Stiltwalker battle fatigued, because they had sailed all night with minimal crew on the Wyvern to get back to Sasserine, RIGHT after the encounter with Captain Javell. So I agree, it's not that harsh. I think I'd DEFINITELY make them fatigued for ROWING all the way back!! Have any of you ever rowed a decent sized rowboat for any length of time? Even on a calm lake or stream it's tough work. I can't imagine doing it for 8 hours at sea. "Fatigued" doesn't begin to describe it; especially after fighting their way through Kraken's Cove.
If you're really nervous about their being able to handle it, tone down the Manor encounters a little. But I'd definitely say they'd feel SOME ill affect from rowing to Sasserine non-stop.
That's sort of what I thought, FDW. And with the help of the dogs and the Jade Ravens in the manor, I think they'll be able to handle it. And if they can't we'll roll up new characters! :)
Actually, if they decide to take shifts rowing and sleeping in the rowboat I will probably treat it like a forced march.
Soon my characters will begin The Bullywug Gambit, and I assume that they'll take a rowboat to and from Kraken's Cove. I have a feeling that when they are rushing back to Sasserine to save Lavinia from the depradations of Drevoraz and the bullywugs, they will want to row 24 hours a day, in 8 hour shifts. (There are four of them.) The adventure says they can do this, but it seems to me that it would be hard to get restful sleep in a rowboat. There is basically a five foot space for each character, IIRC. You're essentually sleeping while sitting up in the boat. I'm thinking there ought to be some penalties after doing this. Perhaps not as bad as being fatigued, but something along those lines. Anyone have any ideas on how to handle this?
I would recommend you compliment them on their roleplaying and appreciate the fact that they're getting immersed enough in your story to care about beating Drevoraz back. Rather than assigning an actual mechanical penalty, just blame any crappy die rolls during the rescue on "rowboat fatigue".
If you REALLY don't want them to beat Drevoraz back and force you to run the siege, give some Boots of the Wetlands to Drevoraz. Then put on your best Perturbed DM face and grouse to your players that they weren't SUPPOSED to make it back in time to save Lavinia and the Jade Ravens, but you think you've got a plan to get the campaign back on track. There's the rescue mission to play through this session, and you think you can work out all the kinks out of the continuation before the game next week, too, although it'll certainly be a lot of work.
Well, I'm not sure how closely I'll follow the adventure as written for this whole section, it seems to me there's all kinds of room for DM discretion to make the adventure run smoothly and to have a feeling of verisimilitude.
If your players will feel heroic rowing all night to get back to Sasserine, by all means have them fight fatigued the next day and water down the encounters a bit to make sure they can survive. Personally, I don't see the sense in having the party leave the Sea Wyvern abandoned in the cove, perhaps for weeks, then going back to reclaim it. It's far more dramatic for them to sail back to Sasserine anyhow--if they're short of crew or expertise, have someone survive the savage tide unscathed--someone has to have made their save! Have Tavey Nesk hiding in the hold of the Sea Wyvern, or have a couple of pirates come back to the cove in a rowboat after a 3-day trip to take on fresh water, or whatever. They will agree to crew the ship back to Sasserine (as long as the party promises not to turn them in for piracy) since their shipmates are all dead or turned into monsters.
If you need the lieutenant to get to Sasserine faster give him a small sailing sloop, or have a contrary wind come up that pushes the Wyvern out to sea and delays the party's return the requisite number of days.
As for the original question of sleeping in a rowboat, it depends on the size of the boat, but generally it is possible in a ten or fifteen foot boat to find a way for a couple of people to lie down. You shouldn't get too wrapped up in trying to fit people into 5 foot squares--these represent the amount of space a person takes up when fighting, not the amount of space a person takes up. Might be pretty cozy, and might not sleep as well as in a feather bed, but if you've been rowing for eight hours you'll sleep well enough. Anyhow, there's no reason why there can't be a larger boat--a pinnace or some such--beached in the cove and undamaged by the proceedings.
Really people, get creative!
My team used the earth elemental from Parrot Island to pull the Sea Wyvern through the reefs (yes, they had the maps). After some harrowing rolls to get the sails raised, they were in Sasserine in no time.
I gave them an A for effort, a decent XP bonus to encourage the creative use of the one-use item, then ran the adventure exactly as planned; the Bullywugs still beat them there because it made the best story.