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sorry and late to chime in... some Easter holidays. Nevermind some de-motivating heart-breaking.
ship actions : first off many of the activities invcluded are either tedious waiting or actions spread out over hours. the rolls determine the moments' of crisis or final decisive action. Andyes, we had a shortlist for "events not potted in time" say by the lookout
We also use(d) them for determining who was actually around the characters to be influenced. Sandara is working the tops ? yeah hard to diplomacy her if you are pumping the bilges. Scourge had one watch under supervision Plugg the other
watches : we immediately went for a watch system of two watches, making some NPCs more or less accessible "at work" or for "helping them out of some trouble". Which made the " I can basically go anywere cook's mate a really atttractive job. A friends group actually got the bard into that position on day eight, after realizing the value and by "infecting" the current character with somecoice TBC lookalike.... *bah* )
Setting no watches at any time ? WTF, this is deep water sailing ! lookouts, maintenance of headway or even checking on the upcoming weather ? sure thing or does anyone actively intend to sink ? Even at anchor... a sudden swing of wind direction and an admirality anchor will give way rather easily. Or have a meeting with some local fauna. OK, I have no idea what Nicolas Logue was thinking, but.... yeah... some more research would have been fun
Lighting at night : two lamps one at the mainmast, one shaded at the binnacle. And as for spotting stuff - phosphorent wake, lighter sails and regular shadow can even be spotted on most tropical nights, even without low-light vision. Nevermind the stuff actually swimming up to the surface in the wake, drawn in by the light of the stern cabin. Which put a a quick stop to people considering swimming off. Or too feel some Deep Water monstrosity scrape against the hull.... then have the characters check on the "damage" the next day.... Care to swim ?
the swarms... beyond deadly. in my run as a player, we encountered one swarm near the beach ( which ended in some hours of determined snorkeling and the lifeboat as a safety turtle shell ). After that, we looked for the late afternoon rains as a deterrent, had a lot of oily smokers ready in clay pots ( mosquitoes and smoke ) but in the end were just lucky. Especially in the maize field.
in my own run as GM I tuned them down, also made them undead which will give the life oracle and elemental sorcerer some opportunity to shine. the undead swarms will also rise only at night.
Caves: our most deadly witch ( sleep at DC 18) and coup de grace combo....saved our sweet asXXes. But.... by the rules, another group jumped down the shaft and had two charactes die from AoOs and Con damage on their down falling by the Stirges..... no comment on that ruling.
as an afterthought (only re-reading it now, to prepare for GMing ) : have a good and hard look at Tim Powers original "on Stranger Tides" and Scott Lynch's "Red Seas under Red Skies".... I think little can be added to the foot-slogging, fantasy induced piracy theme beyond those two titles in the way of mood and "The Strangest Seas" fiction.....
Afterthought : Having heard of three groups who play the AP, having played it myself (we eliminated everyone who was even semi-suspect in four rounds), and now looking at my own group..... I HAVE NOT SEEN ANY GROUP WHO DID NOT IMMEDIATELY MUTINY BEFORE THE ISLAND. In one group, the GM had purposefully included Kipper and Patch as extras aboard the "promise" to prevent this... and even that battle was over in six rounds. To me, the assumption that the players will not go for the first reasonable chance at freedom, with a massive degree of surprise is probably the weakest part of the whole adventure design, since it does take lot of pressure out of the island. Thankfully, in a way.
I like the idea of seting up watches, but I don't think that Nicholas Logue was involved in this one. The author was Richard Pett. Are you confusing it with Razor Coast perhaps?
I like the idea of seting up watches, but I don't think that Nicholas Logue was involved in this one. The author was Richard Pett. Are you confusing it with Razor Coast perhaps?
ok, had the guys confused. thought Logue was the englishman.
oooops, but still, very ...odd.... oversight of whoever wrote it.
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This is easy enough to just add on your own. Basically, every night I had Scourage select someone who would have a night watch and would walk around on deck with a lantern and have to make a DC 15 perception check. I rolled a random encounter sometimes when a PC had the watch.
When PCs drew the job, it was an enforced nighttime action that they had to roll the constitution check for fatigue on. The could also work as diligently as they chose just like daytime actions. When an NPC drew the task it could potentially make sneaking around on deck more interesting for PCs taking nighttime actions, depending on the NPC's attitude.
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nightwatch : a ship is in motion. even if all sails are taken down, there are currents and winddrift. drift oneor two miles an hour ? thatś like 12-24 miles of uncontrolled movement
anchoring : basic rule - you need 5-7 times the depth of water you are anchoring in as hawser... about 3"+ thick stiff rope..... at 50 fathoms ( 100 meters ) we are talking 2100´ of stiff drenched rope, with a 3+ ton weight of the anchor the crew would have to pull up every morning.
and good luck finding someplace shallow enough with only 50 fathomsˆˆ
And that is just about as unrealistically kind and easygoing as it gets. Ships sail at night, simply for safety reasons. nevermind the miles made good, even with reefed down sails.
also... so many nice roleplaying opportunities on deck. Slipping an enemy from the yardarms into the sea to.... say greasing the head (ship's toilets on the ropes besides the bowspirit ). exchanging goods and stuff in the darkness of the night. ... listening in on the officers
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This is easy enough to just add on your own. Basically, every night I had Scourage select someone who would have a night watch and would walk around on deck with a lantern and have to make a DC 15 perception check. I rolled a random encounter sometimes when a PC had the watch.
When PCs drew the job, it was an enforced nighttime action that they had to roll the constitution check for fatigue on. The could also work as diligently as they chose just like daytime actions. When an NPC drew the task it could potentially make sneaking around on deck more interesting for PCs taking nighttime actions, depending on the NPC's attitude.
This is a good way to deal with watches. Although the AP never really mentions posting a night watch, it's unlikely that any ship would leave the deck completely unguarded at night, especially in waters like these where potentially hostile pirates and monsters abound.
The AP and other published materials make it pretty clear that navigating in and among the Shackles themselves is hazardous even in daylight. Without good local knowledge of the reefs, sandbars and odd currents it won't take long for a ship to go aground and be wrecked.
Once out in the open waters of the Fever Sea this changes, and round-the-clock sailing (and watches) become necessary. This is the point my players are at, having just completed the crab fishing interlude, and I'm going to set up a rotation for a small night watch once they get underway again. It should be noted, however, that the crab pot episode shows that there are reefs and shallows to be found even a good distance from shore, so if you want to skip watches and just keep anchoring at night, go for it. It's your game, so do what works for you and your players and have fun.
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Never had nightwatches on the wormwood, I kind of thought that may have been taken in to account.
As soon as they had they started on th Man's Promise however I did. I decided to have a skeleton crew at night with Scourge in control and Plugg in charge of the day shift.
Once they left for the fever sea in part 2 my group decided on a full complient of crew both day and night. They have 1 ship with 50 crew, the 3 players are in the days shift and the night shift has the NPC's as the officers on watch. They also have enough crew to man the weapons day and night without penalties.
Well as my party has only now made it through day 4 they have a long way to go. Mostly they are getting used to the ways of a pirate while collecting some xp along the way. They picked up the heavy maces in the bilge which they are hiding along with a set of leather. Not getting far with trying to influence other crew members. Did manage to improve Rosie to friendly though when she kept beating the dwarf at arm wrestling. The ladies decided it was high time the dwarf had a bath and the four of them took 2 hours bathing him in the bilge. He twernt happy about it expecially being bathed by elves.
So far the way it is progressing I will likely not compress any of the time as they will need it to gel as a party and just get to know each other. They have a fighter, cleric, rogue and a wizard and a bard that shows occasionally. So the party is at least balanced.
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another of the things I found rather mystifying about the whole "Wormwood" ploy was the supposed lack of "armament". At low levels, without many resistances, it is the damage bonus that mostly counts for effect
Prefered and specialised arms, yes. Thse might be hard to get, but overall weapons ?
Some GM's might (?) want to take note, if they intend to keep the players from weaponry, since there those groups that think " we can do the mutiny right away, if we get some weapons"
- Belaying Pins (all over the deck), any number of well balanced clubs, nice for throwing, nice for two-handed clubbery.
- Windlass arms (usually stowed apart from the windlass) - 6'long oaken or tropical wood staffs ?
- Rope end's as saps.. If its is good enough for Scourge and Plugg..... Especially given the rules about killings aboard
- the kitchen knives... or does anyone think Kroop has any idea how many knives he owns ? Or hatchetts' and cleavers' ?
- gambling for weapons. While gambling/card-sharking for money might not be permitted, gambling for a dagger/marlinspike or whatever seeems reasonable enough.
- stuff from the carpenter's chest... axes, small hammers, adzes...
- short chains securing barrels and other boxes...
- dangerous stuff from the kitchen : lamp oil (try using it on someone in the masttops), cooking oil (grease), pepper, flour (in small bags), and I know of at least one player (with an alchemist ) who brewed up poison from potatoes (decent enough char with about +11 in Alchemy ?)... - look it up - hallucination and nausea in the masttops. Same char made an improvised shield from a hunted turtle-back. before you ask, guy IRL is a decent workman, not a specialist in any scientific field. Went to a pretty normal school down in Bavaria w. some practically minded chemistry teacher. So it seemed good enough for Alchemy.
- combination of grease, tar (deckwork) oakum (deckwork) and some hot coals made for nice smokebombs.
We (as players) actually laughed finding the mace in the bilge... noone ever wondered how soaked and broken that stuff down there would be ?
oe thing that went terribly wrong for the group who tried it, was serving the piglet laced with shards of pottery, guessing that Caulky would only laddle stuff from the top.... after that.... they needed a new AP.
One could presume that the stuff was brought on recently. Remember they are only 4 days out of port. Also with being in crates, I presumed that all was above the water line. Besides, this is D&D so some forgiveness for reality must be made. The players were just glad to have some weapons. To each his own I guess.
One could presume that the stuff was brought on recently. Remember they are only 4 days out of port. Also with being in crates, I presumed that all was above the water line. Besides, this is D&D so some forgiveness for reality must be made. The players were just glad to have some weapons. To each his own I guess.
my current group (players, I am GMing ) found the mace... felt prickly about lugging it around ( they were - back the - pretty sensitive about stealing aboard after a graphic description of Magpie ) and promptly forgot it once they switched to the Promise
They definitely hid the maces afraid of being searched coming out of the bilge, but put them where they could find them again. They are starting to finally ask the right questions about how to possibly get their stuff back. Now that the four women are together as a group things could get really interesting from now on (Rosie, Sandara, and the 2 PCs Merceda and Andromeda).
Regarding the swarms on Bonewrack: My group encountered them twice this weekend. Once as a percentage roll encounter while they were traveling to the Fist through the swamp and once in the stockade.
The PCs discussed with their friend, Barefoot Samms, about how to prepare for a jungle trek and since she comes from the Sodden Lands, I ruled she'd know a good bit. She recommended vermin repellant and mosquito netting while sleeping. They obtained these before leaving from the ship's store.
Even with the repellant these two encounters were more tedious than fun. Basically, the swarms had to make a saving throw to attack the PCs, which they missed fairly regularly. The PCs had nothing else to use but torches since physical attacks couldn't hit and they had no other way to do fire damage. So, with a -4 to hit every time for 4/5 of the PCs and 1 HP of fire damage from a successful torch attack on a 31 HP creature, I could tell fast this was going to cause combat to bog way down and not be fun for anyone.
My ultimate solution was to say that these are basically animals and animals want to eat foremost; they don't care about killing anyone. Each time they hit they'd do on average 7 HP damage. I decided that after two successful hits, the bugs were full and lost interest in the fight and would simply buzz off. Still they took chunks out of both the fighter and the gunslinger and the fighter got ghoul fever a second time, so it was still a worthwhile encounter.
But that brings me to a question. The fighter got ghoul fever from one of the ghouls and got it a second time from the bot flies before the first infection was totally resolved. Does this mean that after his first infection runs its course, does the second kick in? I can't find anything on whether two infections run consecutively or concurrently. To be clear, he failed the check to become infected by the ghoul, succeeded his save upon onset a day later (hence no syptoms yet), then failed the throw to become infected by the botflies.
I like the "swarms get full tummies and fly off" idea. Yoinked. ;D
But that brings me to a question. The fighter got ghoul fever from one of the ghouls and got it a second time from the bot flies before the first infection was totally resolved. Does this mean that after his first infection runs its course, does the second kick in? I can't find anything on whether two infections run consecutively or concurrently. To be clear, he failed the check to become infected by the ghoul, succeeded his save upon onset a day later (hence no syptoms yet), then failed the throw to become infected by the botflies.
I believe this gets handled the same as would multiple poisonings... treat it as one occurrence, but the "save" DC increases for each addtional infection.
The more knowledgeable among us may have better info, however....
I like the "swarms get full tummies and fly off" idea. Yoinked. ;D
But that brings me to a question. The fighter got ghoul fever from one of the ghouls and got it a second time from the bot flies before the first infection was totally resolved. Does this mean that after his first infection runs its course, does the second kick in? I can't find anything on whether two infections run consecutively or concurrently. To be clear, he failed the check to become infected by the ghoul, succeeded his save upon onset a day later (hence no syptoms yet), then failed the throw to become infected by the botflies.I believe this gets handled the same as would multiple poisonings... treat it as one occurrence, but the "save" DC increases for each addtional infection.
The more knowledgeable among us may have better info, however....
This is far from official. But I treat poisons and diseases differntly. Poisons have an increased save DC and a longer effect for multiple poisonings, this is represented by multiple doses of a toxin being injected/inhaled into the body. Diseases on the other hand are different.
If you have a disease type A, you can't catch disease type A if you are exposed to it, and its not harder to fight off disease type A if you are exposed to it again. If a person is infected with a type of disease, multiple exposures do not change that.
With exposure to a disease, the PCs will make a saving throw to see if they contracted the disease. If not, they will roll the save everytime they are exposed to it. Once they fail this initial save after exposure, they have contracted the disease and the disease begins to run it's course with the next action occuring after the ONSET time has expired. And then its the regular save or else effect until ther number of required consecutive saves have been made.
In short, once you have a disease, you can't catch it again or have a worse case of it, you just have it. And you then deal with the disease as per normal until you are dead or cured.
I think the question was re different diseases and I see no reason why a character cannot contract different diseases at the same time for a cumulative affect. I had some characters in RA that contracted up to 3-4 diseases at the same time. They were crawling back to town to find a cleric!
I think the question was re different diseases and I see no reason why a character cannot contract different diseases at the same time for a cumulative affect. I had some characters in RA that contracted up to 3-4 diseases at the same time. They were crawling back to town to find a cleric!
Shaun's question was about contracting the same disease (Ghoul Fever) from two different sources. I completely agree that some poor sod can contract multiple different diseases at the same time.
Official or not, Riggler's post makes perfect sense and is probably the most logical way to handle the situation, unless there is Word From On High saying otherwise. ;D
Ok, my old eyes obviously read it wrong. I usually don't penalize someone for getting the same disease more than once but I can see Riggler's idea on it to increase the Fort save and duration.
Ok, my old eyes obviously read it wrong. I usually don't penalize someone for getting the same disease more than once but I can see Riggler's idea on it to increase the Fort save and duration.
<---- Wonders if brvheart is reading posts or scanning them quickly filling in the gaps between the words he reads with what he thinks they say. :)
Note: I said the exact opposite of the above quoted text.
Ok, my old eyes obviously read it wrong. I usually don't penalize someone for getting the same disease more than once but I can see Riggler's idea on it to increase the Fort save and duration.<---- Wonders if brvheart is reading posts or scanning them quickly filling in the gaps between the words he reads with what he thinks they say. :)
Note: I said the exact opposite of the above quoted text.
OK, that is it, I just increased the screen resolution! My apologies for my multiple brain farts here. Lupus fog I guess. I actually had read your post, just misremembered what it said:( Which I guess we could use this to ask the question how the game would handle incurable debilitating diseases? There should be a mechanism for handling things that can't be cured by a full heal. Anyone have a wish or a miracle handy<G>?
if you "need" anything to be nigh uncurable, just add some increase to DC as a progressive side effect... say +1 to DC/3 days, makes it harder on the healer.
For someting really uncurable, make the disease a curse with a steadily increasing DC.... heal = pretty useless against those and so much more fitting into the medieval mindset-
say like Midas' Curse or the Fisher King's never-closing wound.
Nah, I think the weresharks will be good enough for my game, especially since I plan to combine this with Razor Coast. Now if we could just buy the new wereshark minis individually it would be great! I refuse to buy collectable minis in boxes or cases.
I like the "swarms get full tummies and fly off" idea. Yoinked. ;D
Double yoinked. Its a great idea!
Also, I need to look at Razor Coast.. how is it?
I am only about a third the way through it, but so far it looks great! Only one small part looks a tad weak like it was rushed, but still ok. The rest is truly inpired reading thus far!
Made it through the morning of day 8 tonight. The dwarf almost beat Owlbear, got him down to 3 hit points. Added a witch player. She managed to get her dagger and Rosie's fiddle from Grok. So far they are not doing much else at trying to turn other Pirates except for Scourge, the wrong one to try on! The witch got cook's mate duty for a day and failed at trying to slaughter the pig. The ranger helped her with it at her own expense. They both got flogged. The ranger made the mistake of trying to Bluff Scourge that the witch was trying to kill them all. They both got flogged again for it and the witch slit her throat in the middle of the night for it. The ranger made her save, barely and was unable to determine who did it. Cog seemed to make himself look the guiltiest!
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I have just stared running this game with my group tonight. It all went pretty smoothly. We have a female changling sorcerer, female undine witch, male human ranger and male human monk. The Monk is LE and is the chef's mate. The most interesting event involved the monk. Kroop was nearly insensible when he was shoved into the kitchen and told to get on with it, but Kroop managed to get it together enough to send him off fishing. The player had taken 'profession: fisherman' so this happened to suit him down to the ground. He then succeeded on the cooking check and served up a very palatable dish. After watching the keelhauling and dumping his rum ration over the side he elected to spend his first 'ship's action' cleaning the kitchen. In the process of this he made a successful perception check to find some of the stuff, including the rum. He tipped quite a lot of this into Kroops empty bottle. By this point Kroop was passed out against the wall of the hull, head hanging back. The monk then forces Kroop to drink the rum. His plan is to force Kroop to drink himself to death in short order and usurp his place as cook. You've got to hand it to him - that's ingenuity.
I have just stared running this game with my group tonight. It all went pretty smoothly. We have a female changling sorcerer, female undine witch, male human ranger and male human monk. The Monk is LE and is the chef's mate. The most interesting event involved the monk. Kroop was nearly insensible when he was shoved into the kitchen and told to get on with it, but Kroop managed to get it together enough to send him off fishing. The player had taken 'profession: fisherman' so this happened to suit him down to the ground. He then succeeded on the cooking check and served up a very palatable dish. After watching the keelhauling and dumping his rum ration over the side he elected to spend his first 'ship's action' cleaning the kitchen. In the process of this he made a successful perception check to find some of the stuff, including the rum. He tipped quite a lot of this into Kroops empty bottle. By this point Kroop was passed out against the wall of the hull, head hanging back. The monk then forces Kroop to drink the rum. His plan is to force Kroop to drink himself to death in short order and usurp his place as cook. You've got to hand it to him - that's ingenuity.
Not Kroop! q.q Evil bastard.
If Kroop survives and it is likely he will do so there will be one dead monk. 3rd level Rog vs a 1st level Monk. I bet on the Rogue.
So would I in a fight. I don't think the player is going to tell him about his plan to encourage his liver on its way to organ failure...
I don't know how successful he would be trying to force rum down someone that is passed out so I would think Kroop would have to be semi-conscious and would remember the act. Besides, Kroop is a valuable resource for the party later on.
I know my group pretty well and the will need some more going on than 20 days of rolling and roleplaying. There are few adventures I am considering adding. Also I am thinking of having an expanded fight night. Rather than just Owlbear. I am thinking of having the ship hold a fight whoever you want night similar to the boxing matches from Battlestar Galactica.
Well there was always something going on during those 20 days and I tried to deemphasize the die rolling for skills. Yes, they made them all, but I ran through it quickly and then spent time with other things like who is getting whipped today or someone trying to influence the NPC's and the players exploring the ship. I did this largely for my wife with her running 2 characters, but up to 8 others joined in at various stages. No one got bored and it has become one of my more popular games. Every few days there is someone going on in the agenda, a man overboard, fighting the rock crabs, boarding training, fighting owlbear, and finally the final fight on day 18. The rest of the time was filled in with onboard activities of shipboard training, roleplaying, etc.
Anyone worried that their players will get bored for the first 20 days? Seems like it could get pretty repetitive.Players can go exploring the ship during the time, interact with lots of NPCs and do lots of stuff they can come up with. If they have no interest in that, I guess rolling the dice for the days can happen rather quickly, but then you probably have the wrong group for this AP.
Be prepared to get creative. Good players will probably start hatching all kinds of vengeful schemes, bloody feuds, and evil plots quickly. I recommend using any friendly NPCs to emphasize 2 things: 1)The Captain is such a Bad @$$ that overt actions will get the players killed. 2)Nasty practical jokes are a good way of getting their own back - as long as nobody is caught.
Also, if you want to prevent a quick revolt the moment the Captain sails over the horizon, use the same NPCs to say "hold off for a few days for him to be well and truly gone..."
Also, if you want to prevent a quick revolt the moment the Captain sails over the horizon, use the same NPCs to say "hold off for a few days for him to be well and truly gone..."
hmm, actually mutinying on the first few days (just after the Wormwood is beyond the Horizon ), is usually the player's best choice to gain the moment of surprise (which Richard Pett actually emphasizes in the adventure to be most valuable). The NPCs will be divided all over the ship, and leading the attack by eliminatng Scourge or Plugg early on with a mass-attak will certainly help. It will also show the determination of the PCs to shirk of Harrigan's bonds to their supporters.
Known of a few mutinies (six groups by now) in this part of the AP, all of the "early" ones went pretty well, while the single group only mutinying after the island, low on resources and HP, almost got slaughtered and only saved by GM-fiat.
Actually a number of groups mutineed in the apparently most dire of situations, in the middle of the storm, when sight was low (rain) and the element of bushwhacking was almost total.
I'd say, let the players plan determine what do to after the twenty days on the Wormwood - they have been nose-led long enough by then. Plus, the island is deadly enough without an additional limit of time spend ashore
Yep I agree, my group mutinied on the 2nd night on the Man's Promise. Worked out really well. To be honest from a GM's point of view it made more sense and was a lot easier than the ambush appeared to be at the end of the book.
Well the mutiny in our game pretty much went by the book. As they had over half the crew friendly they only fought Plugg and Scourge while the rest of the crew were at a stand off.
I am running a party of four, a barbarian sea-reaver, a half-elf rogue, a halfling bard, and a human gunslinger. No healer per se, but Sandra Quinn is filling in at the moment for them in that sense. During the fight with the Dire rats, 3 of them failed their saves for disease. The fort saves they are failing pretty regularly and they have to save 2x to cure the dire rat disease which does con and str damage. Remove disease is a level 3 cleric, ranger, or druid spell which none of them have access to. There is no loot aboard the ship in any place that has a remove disease spell/potion/wand. They won't be allowed to lay in their hammocks to recover under the healing watch of Sandra Quinn...The first time they lose 2 con from the disease, they will be making fort saves at -1. This is a bit rough for level 1 pc's. How is this supposed to be handled?
I am running a party of four, a barbarian sea-reaver, a half-elf rogue, a halfling bard, and a human gunslinger. No healer per se, but Sandra Quinn is filling in at the moment for them in that sense. During the fight with the Dire rats, 3 of them failed their saves for disease. The fort saves they are failing pretty regularly and they have to save 2x to cure the dire rat disease which does con and str damage. Remove disease is a level 3 cleric, ranger, or druid spell which none of them have access to. There is no loot aboard the ship in any place that has a remove disease spell/potion/wand. They won't be allowed to lay in their hammocks to recover under the healing watch of Sandra Quinn...The first time they lose 2 con from the disease, they will be making fort saves at -1. This is a bit rough for level 1 pc's. How is this supposed to be handled?
The save DC is only 11, so it shouldn't be a problem unless they cannot roll well at all. Remember they only take damage if they fail a save, and use of the heal skill can also help:
Treat Disease: To treat a disease means to tend to a single diseased character. Every time the diseased character makes a saving throw against disease effects, you make a Heal check. If your Heal check exceeds the DC of the disease, the character receives a +4 competence bonus on his saving throw against the disease.
My group had 3/4 PCs contract filth fever. 2/4 also got addicted to Rum. 2/4 also suffered some serious Str drain from the reefclaws. They mostly behaved at night so that they could heal some ability damage. Quinn and Quarne both were ordered to use their heal skills to help assist with the recovery as Leonal pointed out above.
Next session is Day 21 when they take on the Man's Promise. Most of the ability damage has been recovered. You're right, getting that second save in a row can be tricky. Especially harsh since recovery can't happen until they make it!
We also use Hero Points. The PCs have used their points to give someone else a bonus to their role. Yay, hero points!
Good luck to your group!
Thank you very much, everyone who has replied. I appreciate the guidance and suggestions.
Short note for the battle with the queen and whale, plus the devilfish beforehand.
Initiative played a huge part in this for us. Devilfish attacked, smacked on target with tentacle, started to reel the PC in. Was beaten on initiative by four of the characters on the following round and critted by a lesser orb, struck by a harpoon (the devilfish being large and in a shallow passage, at low tide was partially out of the water).
Poor sod, blew his inky-cloud and fled (down by two thirds of his AP) . PCs followed into the chamber of the queen and a large battle resulted. NPCs weren't too lucky on initiative again, the "Whale" being down on the second round, the devilfish, healed up some, barely making it into the fourth round (single HP) - at which point two characters were already diving and out-of-combat for the hostages.
Cavalier intimidated everyone in the room, and a follow up Evil Eye plus sleep (now made at -4 to the save) by the witch caused the Queen to slumber off, ready for a CdG. Yeah, the entire group was in darkvision mode in this part of the AP, so there was little forewarning. Plus the extending pike from the "Man's Promise" became pretty devastating, allowing many attacks without the character being forced to close in by swimming.
Point in fact : initiative in these fights, plus the multiplicity of attacks by the group can be sheer murder, since most of the NPCs do not have area attacks, or inflict massive damage, plus suffering from a low AC threshold as well. If you care to make the fight more challenging... perhaps change some feats to improve initiative or make some preparations for this
A low tide was not all that helpful as well. Group did not even use their special abilities to the fullest.
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I am running The Wormwood Mutiny as an opening chapter for my Razor Coast campaign, and the group is having a blast so far. Unfortunately, their patience is, ah, a bit lacking for running things by the book.
My players decided to mutiny on board the Wormwood right after they were ambushed in the bilges by Plugg's men, the same day the Rahadoumi vessel was spotted. Kroop was passed out dead drunk in the galley, so they barged into Grok's shop, murdered her, and raided the chests to get their stuff back. They barred themselves in the shop while they looted; a few pirates tried to break down the door, but the barbarian/rogue had laid bear traps outside the door that took out two of them, so they went back for reinforcements.
Before the second wave of pirates could arrive, the PCs holed themselves up in the captain's quarters, freeing Owlbear from his chains on the way in and enlisting him to fight back against Plugg and his men. Scourge led a group of six pirates down into the officer's quarters to take on the mutineers, but the pirates didn't last long--maybe four rounds (with Scourge getting coup de grace'd on the last round).
The PCs advanced into the lower deck to continue the fight against Plugg, who had brought along Riaris Krine and Peppery Longfarthing to aid him in the fight. The PCs had managed to get on Riaris' good side during the voyage (this may not be in keeping with the module's instructions on who can be influenced, but meh who cares), and a decent Diplomacy check during battle from the group's oracle convinced her to side with them.
The oracle and Riaris made Bluff checks to play-fight, shifting around the hold to position themselves closer to Plugg, who was facing off against the group's fighter. Meanwhile, the barbarian/rogue beelined for Peppery while the witch and alchemist caused as much mayhem as they could with hexes and bombs. Peppery did a lot of damage during this fight, killing the fighter with a 30-damage lightning bolt, but once Riaris and the PCs killed Plugg, she stood down. Unfortunately for her, the barbarian/rogue doesn't believe in loose ends, and he ended Peppery's life with a stroke of his greatsword once she surrendered.
In the aftermath, Riaris quickly composed a cover story about Plugg and Scourge plotting to kill Harrigan, and the alchemist planted a few vials of poison on both of their bodies to aid in the ruse. Riaris' backing, combined with some hella good Bluff checks on the PCs' part, convinced Harrigan of their honesty.
Riaris is now First Mate, the replacement magus for the fighter is the new ship's wizard with the alchemist assisting, the oracle is taking over quartermaster duties, and the barb/rogue has been recruited by Krine to act as her replacement in gunnery. (The witch seems content to mend sails and help Kroop in the kitchen.) The attack on the Rahadoumi vessel (which I'm reskinning as variant drow to fit into my own campaign world) is still slated for tomorrow, though, so there's no telling whether the PCs will decide to stay on with Harrigan or attempt to take the other ship as their own.
Side note: The oracle PC's player took a variant curse he found online that manifests as a black spot on the palm of his left hand, which caused all pirates to react negatively toward him. This caused no end of trouble story-wise though, since the PC wanted to influence others on the ship but couldn't due to the curse's limitations. So, when he asked for the quartermaster position, Harrigan balked--and when the oracle pushed the issue, the captain grappled him and cut off the offending hand. As a result, I created the following oracle curse to replace his existing one.
New Oracle Curse: One-Handed
Whether due to a medical amputation or a horrible wound, you have lost one of your hands--but your combat prowess with a replacement prosthetic limb is mysteriously amplified as a result of this loss.
Effect
You cannot wield weapons in your offhand, wield weapons two-handed, use shortbows or longbows, or perform most tasks that require two hands. You also cannot take the Rapid Reload feat. You take a -4 penalty to Climb checks and all Dexterity-based skill checks (except Fly and Stealth), as well as CMB checks made to start or break a grapple. You cast all of your spells as if they were modified by the Still Spell feat.
If you attach a prosthetic limb, such as a hook, to your affected limb, you gain the following benefits.
At 5th level, you can deflect blows with your prosthetic limb, gaining a +2 shield bonus to AC in any round in which you do not use it to attack.
At 10th level, you gain a +2 competence bonus to attack rolls with any prosthetic limb that doubles as a weapon (such as a hook). Additionally, the penalties to skill and CMB checks noted above are reduced to -2.
At 15th level, your prosthetic limb cannot be disarmed or sundered.
No idea what/how this could have happened if playing by the book but it looks like you're not so hey just do what you want I guess.
Sounds like a boon rather than a curse. Aren't bad things supposed to happen when you are cursed?
The oracle curses are all a combination of drawbacks and benefits.
I guess I am not all that familiar with Oracles.
The oracle curses are all a combination of drawbacks and benefits.
yeah : but major curses, minor benefits. Like your effectively almost blind, but can see slightly better in darkness. Or being deaf... or being dangerously haunted or very hard to understand in stressful situations ? Or lame.... ? I don't think the drawbacks from the oracle "curse" you propose are strong enough to more than balance out gaining a powerful "instant" feat plus a series of great boni from the seeming drawback ?
I think it's pretty reasonable. Compare to the Deaf curse from the Advanced Player's Guide, which gives you Scent AND Tremorsense.
If anything, I feel I might have been a bit too heavy-handed in handing out penalties to various skill checks with this curse... but we're gonna playtest it out and see how it goes.
Okay. I just started this particular adventure path with my party and I've run into a bit of a SNAFU. As a player for more nearly thirty years (began playing in 1988 with Advanced D&D) I absolutely HATE being railroaded into something with no chance of prevention. So, I allowed my players the chance to make Fort Saves vs the Oil of Taggit (DC 15). My players made their saves. Both were monks. I didn't figure this to be a real problem. I would just have them get whooped into submission by Plugg and Scourge. The only problem is that my players (both of which are evil as hell, landed criticals simultaneously and Stunning fisted both of them. Both of the monks had very high strength scores (20 and 19 respectively, yes, they rolled VERY high stat scores) In the rounds of combat that followed, both monks rolled two more criticals.
Poor Plugg ran (as was his Morale) and Scourge got beaten to death. The four pirates that were with them didn't fare much better. In the end, I had the captain come in and offer the pair a place on the ship, one as the new Boatswain and the other (since she had profession: cook) as the cooks mate.
Here's the problem. The captain has obviously taken a liking to the two. I did have him keelhaul Plugg (who was found cowering nearby the inn) and he survived. He is now a swab like everyone else and is a nice little monkey wrench, but he's not a real threat right now as no one on the crew trusts him, being the coward that he is.
I need a way to keep the adventure on track and am having some issues. Can anyone help? I don't really know what to do here. I think I might have screwed myself.