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Opportunities to be a CG Robin Hood of the Seas or a LE slave-taking empire builder or anything in between and not be unnecessarily penalized for whatever choice you make. I'd probably go the CG route, but if anyone should be able to go the other way it's pirates.
Apparently it will be sand-boxy and have Infamy and Plunder subsystems. I'd really like those to have some direct effects on PC stats (especially money) and NPC interactions without feeling tacked on.
I'm definitely hoping for a good explanation of how and why the standard mooks you're going to be fighting keep getting higher level as the AP progresses (since it seems likely you'll be fighting humanoid foes a lot of the time).
At least one module that's partially a Treasure Island/Jason and the Argonauts style quest for the Lost/Mythical Treasure with strange foes on lost islands. Hopefully with a treasure map.
I expect to get all these things, because Paizo is cool like that.
Detailed Ship to Ship combat rules..with the option for Cannon..yes I'm a traditionalist.
Ship construction rules
A good weather generation system
some really cool monsters, treasure maps, an awesome island jungle crawl, twisted mermaids, the list could go on:)
Good ship-to-ship combat rules. Here's how it worked under 3.5:
In the 3.5 naval combat system, it's essentially impossible to sink a sailing ship without a wizard/sorcerer as a living cannon (and perhaps the judicious use of a ram.) While easy to hit, ships have a hardness that subtracts 5 points right off the top of every physical blow. Ships take full damage from only the following forms: slashing and bludgeoning melee weapons (including rams), siege engines that are not a ballista, force and sonic damage. Everything else does half damage or less. Fire, electricity, acid, ballista bolts, and piercing melee weapons do half damage. Cold does one quarter damage. Medium and small sized missile weapons do no damage.
One section of a caravel has 80 hit points and a hardness of 5. You need to hole six sections to sink a ship, although it can sink from fewer holes than that number. And a ballista bolt, at 3d8 damage, after halving the damage and subtracting out the hardness, does 1.5 points of damage on average to the ship section and it can fire one shot every four rounds. 29 shots are needed to hole one section, requiring 116 rounds. Historically, that's not bad; in DnD, there's no way a ballista crew is going to survive long enough to be a threat.
The oft-mentioned fire ball wand? (5d6)/2 produces average damage of 10.5 points per round to up to 12 sections of a ship (a 20' radius fireball and each section is 10' cube). At that rate, you'd need 8 charges to get your hull sections holed. Any section holed harms each section on either side of that due to rippling damage weakening each adjacent section by half its hit points.
As far as a fireball starting fires, the way that Stormwrack deals with that issue is to note that ships were not floating tinderboxes until the advent of powder magazines, although fires can and do destroy ships without gunpowder. Ships faced with one of a long list of fire spells make a fire check vs. DC 10+spell level. Ships prepared for battle with buckets of sand and water on deck and decks wet down get a +4 bonus on this roll. So, a battle-ready ship hit by a fireball has got to get a 9 or better.
If it did catch fire, half the squares exposed to fire ignite. A twenty foot radius spread, placed for maximum effect, would damage 12 sections, so six sections would be on fire. A burning square deals 2d6 damage per round to that hull section. A fire will typically spread to a new square every four rounds. That would decrease the time spent to sink a ship, certainly, as the sailors would have to be insane to go put out any fires started in that area, as that area's the wizard will target with a fireball next round.
At the end of the day, the best, simplest and shortest way to sink a ship is to kill its crew.
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I'd like to see the "plunder subsystem" renamed the "bootymeter."
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The other thing that this AP is going to need is a system for being a merchant, buying in one port several tonnes of X and selling it in another. Perhaps the booty system will accommodate that; I hope so.
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The other thing that this AP is going to need is a system for being a merchant, buying in one port several tonnes of X and selling it in another. Perhaps the booty system will accommodate that; I hope so.
I would LOVE to see some sort of economic system in the new AP.
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I would like to see and even stronger and evocative Player's Guide for this AP. One with new Traits that would fit with the AP.
In previous APs certain game mechanics have had their début (chase rules, haunts, etc) I would be really interested to see which one(s) we get to try for this AP.
And we've all seen Ghost Ships in fiction and RPGs before, I can't wait to see how Paizo spins this old beloved trope.
Will there be guns and dear I say cannons is this AP?
"Well me bucko ye aren't a proper pirate lessen ye 'ave cannon..they old fashioned Bolt shooters be alright in their place but it takes Cannon to really chill the blood o' the foe"
I hope we get them as an option at least.
I would like to see ships given their own unit stats like the armies in Kingmaker.
I would like to see weather hazards like hurricanes, storms, whirlpools, and water spouts worked up similar to haunts, but applicable to fighting ships.
Some guidance on how one ship escapes another.
Is it really going to be called Skull and Bones? Then I want stats for George W. Bush and George H. W. Bush.
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Great news! And I have some opinions, as I'm into the second year of running a home-brewed Pathfinder piracy AP called Reavers on the Seas of Fate. Here's what I have in mine that I'd love to see more of.
- Having actual shiphandling and weather and suchlike be exciting.
- The overall plot doesn't have to be sandbox but a lot of latitude and support (tables, content, etc.) for random piracy (ship-to-ship and ship-to-town). Think Zak's Wavecrawl Kit.
- Cannon.
- Good ship combat rules. Stormwrack's were pretty good. Don't forget ship-to-shore.
- Good easy mass combat rules. Any even semi realistic piracy game will have ships full of 30+ dudes on either side.
I want to weather a storm and have it be a close thing, resupply by trading to some natives along a coastline, sack a town, hide my treasure on an island, exchange broadsides with the Chelish Navy, have my infamy known up and down the Steaming and Fever Seas... Have run-ins with the Grey Corsairs over slave galleons and the Mordant Spire elves over Azlanti ruins. Stealing a ship, losing it, and murdering a whole crew to get another. Whoring in Ilizmagorti. Drinking in Riddleport. Rum, sodomy, and the lash.
The other thing that this AP is going to need is a system for being a merchant, buying in one port several tonnes of X and selling it in another. Perhaps the booty system will accommodate that; I hope so.I would LOVE to see some sort of economic system in the new AP.
+1
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"Well me bucko ye aren't a proper pirate lessen ye 'ave cannon..they old fashioned Bolt shooters be alright in their place but it takes Cannon to really chill the blood o' the foe"
I hope we get them as an option at least.
While I'm fine with them as an option (an extremely costly and rare one), I'd prefer that they not be standard armaments for the following reasons:
1. Pirates have existed since sailing has. While Hollywood has imprinted the 17th Century Age of Sail in our collective consciousness, it's a major genre-breaker for many other types of fantasy. Mongoose did a very good gun-free pirate treatment for the Conan game. Paizo can certainly do the same, or more likely, better!
2. Cannons in ships = cannons in all ground-based fortifications as well. Since this hasn't proven to be the case in the Golarion products published to date, I don't want them ret-conned in just to accommodate the "right way of portraying pirates".
3. I want Paizo to finally do what I feel every other attempt at nautical game has failed to do well: address the impact of magic on nautical travel & warfare. This includes ship construction, defense, and offensive capability.
Just my 2 pieces of eight.
I'd be happy if it involves Azlanti isles a bit, or a part of an adventure happens underwater.
I'm not for cannons, weapons less advanced, various exotic ballistae or scorpions. Maybe one secret magical weapon that works like a cannon.
Articles about slavery, smuggling and trade. Pirate code?
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Ramming speed!
Seriously. I want rules for rams and ship damage...and sinking speeds.
oooo...Azlant would rock. maybe something involving the Skum or Dagon or maybe even underwater ruins of Thassalon. Even something touching on the elves of the Mordant Spire would be nice.
just...promise me no more dragon turtles. they seem to crop up all too often in anything based on the sea. A ship with black sails and crewed by the damned who's captain was so evil that Hell itself spat him back out again would be just fine. but dragon turtles are over done godsdammit!
Hmm, I admit I haven't read everything about Golarion, but what is the ship technology level we're working with? Are oar pulled galleys more common? Are carracks and caravels the height of technology? Or are there full rigged ships more appropriate to the golden age of sail?
First, I'd like to see a bare-chested pirate queen straight from the pages of Conan.
As far as guns go, I'm sure they'll make a strong appearance. In the Inner Sea World Guide, the writeup on The Shackles is a good spot to get a taste of what's on its way. The Hurricane King Kerdak Bonefist has a magical pistol and his ship is fully outfitted with cannons.
Other crews of note: A druid and his giant squid captain the Kraken. The Blood Moon is a ship full of werewolves. I really can't wait to see what's next, and I suspect (and hope) to see an appearance by Aboleths.
Re 3.5 Ship Combat.
When has a Ballista ever been good for sinking ships? I'm fairly certain that is what cannons (bludgeoning damage) is for.
Ultimate Combat is going to have rules for naval battles, so we'll see how Pathfinder handles things soon enough.
Re 3.5 Ship Combat.
When has a Ballista ever been good for sinking ships? I'm fairly certain that is what cannons (bludgeoning damage) is for.
Ultimate Combat is going to have rules for naval battles, so we'll see how Pathfinder handles things soon enough.
not to digress TOO far off point, but I could easily see why firearms wouldn't develop in Golarion as they did in our own history. Magic is far cheaper and much easier to use. why spend 4000gp on a cannon and bother with keeping it working when you can just train a wizard or three up to level 5 and have them toss fireballs at enemy ships? even a well time gust of wind can turn the tide of battle. And fireball casting magi don't blow up the ship like a direct hit on a powder magazine would do. And even if you didn't want to train a wizard, just dig up a couple of sorcerers. they cost even less than wizards...it just comes natural to 'em.
(Wait a minute...before everyone gets too hyped up....will the PC's actually get to play bloodthirsty pirates, OR will they be the heroes sent in with a nation or government's fleet to eradicate a pirate menace and clean up a sand-boxed area of a pirate threat???)
I would love to see ship combat where the PC's actually make a difference to the rolls. If they take a feat or Ship Gunner skill then it should count for something instead of a generic set of ship combat rules. A mage fire-balling the sails on the other ship, etc. The sea druid with her sharks with frickin lazer beams.... LOL.
ooo...I hadn't considered what a druid could mean to this AP. if you didn't want to go sea druid, imagine what a storm druid could accomplish!
Or a mad alchemist at sea. dear god...THAT would be horrifying.
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A real underwater adventure. Not an air filled fortress under the sea but a mainly in the water adventure with perhaps some air filled areas. It could be azlanti ruins or some other older darker place but I would love the PC's to take the big plunge as counterpoint to all of the sailing on top of the sea. I think this is an area of rpgs that has been mainly lacking.
Re 3.5 Ship Combat.
When has a Ballista ever been good for sinking ships? I'm fairly certain that is what cannons (bludgeoning damage) is for.
Ultimate Combat is going to have rules for naval battles, so we'll see how Pathfinder handles things soon enough.
not to digress TOO far off point, but I could easily see why firearms wouldn't develop in Golarion as they did in our own history. Magic is far cheaper and much easier to use. why spend 4000gp on a cannon and bother with keeping it working when you can just train a wizard or three up to level 5 and have them toss fireballs at enemy ships? even a well time gust of wind can turn the tide of battle. And fireball casting magi don't blow up the ship like a direct hit on a powder magazine would do. And even if you didn't want to train a wizard, just dig up a couple of sorcerers. they cost even less than wizards...it just comes natural to 'em.
I was fairly certain a discussion of naval battles in pathfinder is fairly on point.
My point is, and correct me if we have an ancient naval battles expert around, I don't think ballistas were ever intended as a ship sinking weapon. My impression is they were fairly anti-personnel in nature. Ramming and boarding were fairly frequent tactics back in the greek/roman days. Besides, killing the crew and adding the captured vessel to your fleet is also good tactics. Catapults might work for ship to ship combat though. And there is definitely a reason they invented Greek fire.
As for mages on ships, it all depends on how rare you make spell casters in your world. From control weather to fireball to gust of wind, spell casting would change naval warfare quite drastically.
(Wait a minute...before everyone gets too hyped up....will the PC's actually get to play bloodthirsty pirates, OR will they be the heroes sent in with a nation or government's fleet to eradicate a pirate menace and clean up a sand-boxed area of a pirate threat???)
I would love to see ship combat where the PC's actually make a difference to the rolls. If they take a feat or Ship Gunner skill then it should count for something instead of a generic set of ship combat rules. A mage fire-balling the sails on the other ship, etc. The sea druid with her sharks with frickin lazer beams.... LOL.
According to what James Jacobs said at the seminar you will be the piratees and have a huge amount of free reign to play them in whatever style you wish.The AP is a framework to hang some potentialy great adventuring on.
As to cannon ..well as you'll probably have to pay for and equip your fleet out of your treasury I don't see them being the standard armament but the occasional one would be nice.That's why I said we should have them as an option.
Oh and other things I want..a good old fashioned brawl in a pirate tavern, A ghost ship that is a self repairing construct and a magical submarine crewed by gnomish explorers.
As to cannon ..well as you'll probably have to pay for and equip your fleet out of your treasury I don't see them being the standard armament but the occasional one would be nice.That's why I said we should have them as an option.
Oh and other things I want..a good old fashioned brawl in a pirate tavern, A ghost ship that is a self repairing construct and a magical submarine crewed by gnomish explorers.
You had me all the way until the gnomish submarine. If the cool Golarion gnomes ever go the way of the lame Tinker Gnome, you can bet your ass that an Aroden-death level event will forever wipe them from Golarion canon in my campaigns!
You see, I dislike the "gnomes must be mad mechanical geniuses/idiots".
Just a little bit. ;)
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1. Tengu as a player race.
2. Beshema, the Pirate Queen by Sean.
3. Dragon turtle, sea serpent, brine dragon encounters. Sahuagin, giant sharks,
4. No, or limited, sea elves. Same for aboleth.
5. An under water adventure. Just one issue, or a few encounters spread out.
6. Geography of the Shackles. And the Sodden lands.
7. Sneak into the town to stop cannons adventure.
8. One good pirate town write-up.
9. A really good sea battle with the Red Mantis.
10. A high level fight with a Cheliax fleet. Outsiders do need to breathe. Any sea battle in fog, or in the Eye.
11. Update of the Shackles Pirate prestige class.
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As to cannon ..well as you'll probably have to pay for and equip your fleet out of your treasury I don't see them being the standard armament but the occasional one would be nice.That's why I said we should have them as an option.
Oh and other things I want..a good old fashioned brawl in a pirate tavern, A ghost ship that is a self repairing construct and a magical submarine crewed by gnomish explorers.
You had me all the way until the gnomish submarine. If the cool Golarion gnomes ever go the way of the lame Tinker Gnome, you can bet your ass that an Aroden-death level event will forever wipe them from Golarion canon in my campaigns!
You see, I dislike the "gnomes must be mad mechanical geniuses/idiots".
Just a little bit. ;)
How about we make the sub yellow and the 4 gnomes crewing it are bards.;)
Besides who said that they had to be Mad idiotic inventors, they could be perfectly sane intelligent inventors..gnomes on golarion are thrill seekers..and exploring the oceans depths is certainly that.
Sea serpents, mermaids, kraken, scylla, charabdys, giant crabs, sirens, nerieds, giant octopus/squid, sea witches, and water dragons of some kind
Re 3.5 Ship Combat.
When has a Ballista ever been good for sinking ships? I'm fairly certain that is what cannons (bludgeoning damage) is for.
Ultimate Combat is going to have rules for naval battles, so we'll see how Pathfinder handles things soon enough.
Yep. That's sort of my point: without cannons--and everything that they do to a setting--3.5 naval combat devolves to mass combat on decks, rather than what people typically think of as ship vs. ship tactical combat. Yes, catapults are mechanically superior, but they're much less stylish and evoke Greek Triremes rather than more modern navies of the Brits, etc.
Yep. That's sort of my point: without cannons--and everything that they do to a setting--3.5 naval combat devolves to mass combat on decks, rather than what people typically think of as ship vs. ship tactical combat. Yes, catapults are mechanically superior, but they're much less stylish and evoke Greek Triremes rather than more modern navies of the Brits, etc.
That's what I'm curious about. How did naval battles look in the 14th century?
Besides this is Pathfinder. Jumping onto another ship and slaughtering enemy crewmen will be fun. Assuming the wizard doesn't sink the ship on the horizon.
As much as I'd love to see a great ship to ship tactical game like Man'O'War, I think we'll get something more like 7 Seas.
I would like to see it be a great Pirate AP for the first two adventures, then be switched to an underground AP against a "dark" version of one of the normal surface races.
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Yep. That's sort of my point: without cannons--and everything that they do to a setting--3.5 naval combat devolves to mass combat on decks, rather than what people typically think of as ship vs. ship tactical combat. Yes, catapults are mechanically superior, but they're much less stylish and evoke Greek Triremes rather than more modern navies of the Brits, etc.That's what I'm curious about. How did naval battles look in the 14th century?
Besides this is Pathfinder. Jumping onto another ship and slaughtering enemy crewmen will be fun. Assuming the wizard doesn't sink the ship on the horizon.
As much as I'd love to see a great ship to ship tactical game like Man'O'War, I think we'll get something more like 7 Seas.
I just hope it is more indepth and better than the mass combat rules of Kingmaker. Don't get me wrong the ones in KM are ok and get the job done. Plus mass combat is not the focus of the AP. But for a AP about Pirates I expect and want indepth rules about ship to ship combat, sea travel, underwater and sea dangers etc.
I want to see rules that allow me to use the moonlight bridge revelation as a boarding ramp.