I have recently purchased Green Ronin's Skull and Bones book. I am currently running a Pathfinder swashbuckling campaign set in a more mystical version of 18th century Spanish Main.
For those of you who have used this rulebook, what parts do you suggest I use?
I am currently thinking about implementing the affliction system.
Also, I am thinking about modifying the magic rules a bit to fit with the Pathfinder system. I really like the flavor of voodoo
I like the low magic/gritty feel of this campaign setting as well.
Any more ideas?
Thanks.
It looks like you want to keep pathfinder as the core and find rules out of Skull and Bones to incorporate, I will assume that is what you want.
This is what I would use if I went that route.
The ship rules in chapter 10, pathfinder really does not have any true ship combat rules right now. Chapter 6 for equipment. Incorporate Fame and Sway, you will likely need pirates to man your ships and you need some rules to take care of that.
Now if I wanted a low magic campaign using skull and bones core and referencing the pathfinder rule books rather than the 3.5 PH and DMG:
I would just ban the pathfinder classes and make players use only the skull and bones book, using pathfinder instead of the 3.5 players handbook and DMG as a reference when needed for additional rules. For a pirate campaign high magic makes ships kind of meaningless in the long term (flying, teleportation, warp wood, cantrips that mend, 1st level spells that can burn down sails or ships). Pathfinder mainly changed the classes and the magic you have just eliminated them so backwards compatibility is a blessing here. Also armor use is a huge change (Pathfinder is not balanced for a no metal armor campaign longterm) so one really does need the parrying rules to make high level combat work. Let me know how it turns out and what you chose to do.
As a group, we are more familiar with the Pathfinder rules so we are using that as core. Also, we are midway through the campaign using Pathfinder rules, so it would not make any sense to make Skull & Bones core.
With that said, I am replacing the wizard and sorcerer classes with the bokor and hougan classes. (How should I go about bringing these classes up to par with Pathfinder standards?)
I am allowing the priest class from Adamant's Tome of Secrets. The priest in the party possesses a holy relic which allows her to cast divine magic normally. As such, I will most likely leave the damage system as is.
I have eliminated life restoring magic, but will replace that with Skull & Crossbone's affliction table.
I will most definitely institute fortunes, backgrounds, fame, sway, and ship-board combat rules.
The group's composition is as follows:
Swashbuckler 9 (makes extensive use of the parry, riposte feats from Nicolas Logue's Art of the Duel indulgence.)
Fighter 9 (specializes in double-barreled pistols vis-a-vis the firearms section in Tome of Secrets; she carries six on her person at all times)
Monk 9 (Tulita variant from Nicolas Logue's Warrior's Way indulgence)
Priest 9 (Catholic nun in possession of a holy relic)
Rogue 9 (commando build; specializes in sniping enemies from hiding)
Just being nosy as I'm not familiar with the product, but what exactly entails the affliction system? Thanks.
This is probably of little use to you since it appears you are looking for crunch. I found G.U.R.P.S.'s Swashbucklers a better reference for piracy in the Caribbean.
For you Bokor you could use the Bard spell casting progression to power them up a little magically. Just have the Bokor "the hidden fire" ability give 7th level spells at 14th, "the ancient fire" give 8th level spells at level 16th, and "echoes of the past" give 9th level spells at level 18. For the Hougan just follow the sorcerer spell progression instead to power them up. I think the Favors are cool so make all the 5-9th level divine spells follow the favor rules and you are good. Spell lists would need to be individualized to the type of campaign you want to run.
Urizen, basically the affliction system is a alternative death system. Whenever a character would normally "die" they instead "roll the bones" and gain an affliction (afflictions are the cost of still being alive, such as negatives to attribute scores or skills). Rolling the bones can be good or bad, either miraculous salvation or an even worse death (you get multiple lives in skull and bones, so yes a death could cause you to die twice on a bad "roll the bones" roll).
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Personally, I use the ill fortunes as flaws in my campaign, and I love the dueling prestige classes for the most parts. I never DID like the Bokor and Houngan classes though for a standard D&D style campaign, due to their relative weakness. I'd say that stealing some special abilities and turning them into prestige classes might work.
I've also used the death rules for a long time, at low level, just to keep the campaign going. :) Otherwise, it seems to work out well.
I really LOVED this product... keep us posted on how the conversions go!