My wife is actually going to be making an alchemist pirate using the chirurgeon/vivisectionist archetypes. Her aim is to take on the carpenter/surgeon role of the ship, and I think this build is going to make for some great flavor. Our characters are going to need to see her, but will also be dreading it. She's going to enjoy the cutting a bit too much... (did I mention her race is tiefling? :-P)
Someone able to make bombs that burn wood?
Nah, I can't imagine what use they'd be on a wooden ship in the thick of a sea battle.
I was in a nautical campaign where another player did the vivisectionist approach exactly as Joseph described above and it worked fantastically. That said, don't forget the PCs have been press-ganged (drafted) into a pirates life, something they may very well have no qualifications for except for being able to swab a deck. I'd allow just about anything and let the players figure out how to make it work.
It's all a matter of perspective. I can easily envision an alchemist with a very lawful bent, working in a pristine lab setting typically with stationary beakers and precise measurements being a disaster in a nautical or pirate campaign. Fortunately that is not the essential summation of alchemist. There are tons of different ways to go.
If I were making a character for such a campaign, I'd make a ship's cook and brewmaster. He would have slid into alchemy after getting a bizarre cookbook as part of his share of the treasure on a particular haul and through experimentation. After making a pint that put some real hair on the chest of the wounded captain, and the mother of all chicken soups that sped his recovery along nicely, he gained a bit more prominence than he once had. Now he spends his time searching for exotic spices or food sources to perfect his craft and discover more arcane recipes. He's every bit the crack shot with his trusty skillet (sneak attack) and given his extensive practice at butchering meat, knows a thing or two about bodies (vivisectionist). He's even mastered the fine art of brewing grey ooze booze (mutagen) that everyone else finds absolutely revolting, but he finds hits just the spot for his practiced palette.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Also sometimes you're getting chased down by the Navy, so you don't need to capture that ship, you just want to sink it and get away. That's when you have an alchemist let loose his bombs with abandon.
Blackbeard famously threw bombs as part of his standard combat strategy. Alchemists aren't just stuffy scientists. They're the madman who mixes a bit of this, and a bit of that and BOOM!
Alchemist totally makes sense for a pirate as far as I'm concerned (at least as much as a wizard or ninja).
The provided campaign traits assume you're in port peril. It also says you can modify them it that makes more sense or the character. Eg, taken from a passing chelaxian merchant vessel the day before. Use your imagination.
There are some simples rules for fires aboard ships in volume 2 of the Jade Regent AP (just used them on Sunday). I found they worked pretty well. I suspect the full rules are in the core book somewhere but don't have it front of me.
I have to agree with you x, but i'd still rather deal with the real pirates than the legit navies of the time period. they were worse on their press ganged crews.
Rogue in our campaign is angling for the "naturalist" angle. Collect specimen, failed gnomish student. Of course, the player may have allusions of Stephen Maturin, come to that.
Fire on ships : exceedingly nasty. Great thing. and entirely too sensible and "lacklustre" in DnD 3.5. Ships consisting of dry wood, tar, hemp, linen... what could possibly happen^^
|
I'll be starting this AP pretty soon.
One of my players is going to be playing a "Grenadier" Alchemist. Throwing bombs and such.
From the description in book 1 of the AP, it seems like it's fairly difficult for a ship to catch on fire. The ship would be constantly covered in sea spray / water splashing up from the sides. So the wood would constantly be wet.
I'm really looking forward to seeing how it works out.
I imagine the alchemist using his bomb making skills to modify siege weapons later on in the game.
I'll pop back in after our first game to let you all know how it went.
Having spent ALOT or time on salt water in a fully restored Oyster Skiff I can attest to he difficulty of catching the actual boat on fire. Now stuff inside of the boat is a different matter.
Stuff inside a boat is still pretty damp, stuff outsides always wet.
I'd totally allow an alchemist in the AP. I can see how pirate captains would want Alchemists on board for all kinds of reasons. Now I agree that chemistry would be hard to pull off on rough seas but not impossible.
I'd say that ships in the tropics dry out fairly easily, especially in hot tropical weather, this being the tradewind area after all ( anything of less than 5 Beaufort ). Spray is neglible for anything less than storms and further back on the ship (say, the captain's quartes or the rear decks and worse, especially inside ships. Nevermind everything inside, especially on the lower decks : sailcloth (also used for clothing, interior "walls" and screens, hammocks, storage bundles), hemp (for ropes and caulking), lacquer and oils for treating wood, turpentine and Rum for dissolving paint or oneself, etc etc etc. Remember... good rum burns very well. With an alchemical bomb clipping cloth (think : curtains), on dec or belowdecks, catastrophy can mount quickly
Fort save vs [ DC+damage taken ] ? With a base save of +6 for a sailing ship ? With simple "alchemists fire" that sounds like a 40% chance each round to catch on fire..... compare player's guide for the AP.
There is a very good reason navies employed safety lamps onboard wooden ships.
As for chemistry : ships roll, but for one you can stow tables and equipment cardanically (basically on a reverse gyro staying stable while the ship moves) for anything not huge and cumbersome. Same way modern ovens are mounted on (sailing) ships.
So if your Alchemist is slightly inclined to engineering, no problem there.
Having spent ALOT or time on salt water in a fully restored Oyster Skiff I can attest to he difficulty of catching the actual boat on fire. Now stuff inside of the boat is a different matter.
Stuff inside a boat is still pretty damp, stuff outsides always wet.
Then again a 12' skiff does not really compare in "wetness" to a 120' sailing ship, right ? *grin*
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Couldn't they just mix stuff up in the kitchen, meth-lab style?
A modicrum of creativity should get you over the verisimilitude hurdle. If you want realism, um, this is both the wrong setting and wrong system. Like, isn't this the same system that lets you add row speed with sailing speed, or allow your ship to be pulled by narwhales? And an alchemist is a problem how?
Like, isn't this the same system that lets you add row speed with sailing speed, or allow your ship to be pulled by narwhales? And an alchemist is a problem how?
Sailing + rowing = typical mediterranean style, even/especially in battle until the 18th century. So... not fancy at all. I have not spoken to any Narwhales recently though^^
Carry the realism as far as the magic allows, I'd say. And setting fire to cloth is.... pretty problematic on a ship
...well, as pirates, the last thing you're going to want to do is risking damaging anything valuable. Sending the ship to the Locker with the plunder aboard by setting it on fire is counterproductive.Someone able to make bombs that burn wood?
Nah, I can't imagine what use they'd be on a wooden ship in the thick of a sea battle.
That's what the acid bomb, frost bomb, and shock bomb discoveries are for.
...Best to take one of those first in this adventure.
I'm thinking if you're having problems squaring how an alchemist would fit in on a pirate ship you don't know nearly enough meth cooks in real life.
I'm thinking if you're having problems squaring how an alchemist would fit in on a pirate ship you don't know nearly enough meth cooks in real life.
Depends on whether you just want to cook up some crystalline Meth, or if you are going for the "mummification" process from UM^^
Anyway, get some book on exploration vessels (James Cook's "Endeavour" or "Adventure" or the "beagle" used by Darwin) and see how stuff can be done aboard. Human ingenuity etc.
don't go this way, though^^
labby
nevermind trying THIS
detect
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The mumification process is just cooking up enough meth to effectively bathe in.
As a way of reconciling the default gunpowder-less PF pirates with the iconic cannon-shooting Carribean pirates, alchemists are essential in my opinion. Your alchemist might be the one to "invent" functional gunpowder! There are hints that the Hurricane King sports cannons or something like them later in the AP. Your alchemist may be pivotal in evening the score. Explosives on ships have always been a hazard. Never seemed to stop anyone, even after infamous accidents.
I'm all for alchemists in Skull and Shackles.
An Alchemist is a natural-born gunner's mate/armory officer/grenadier (those poison gas bombs? PERFECT for dropping down the hold when the crew won't come up).
Alchemists make perfect sense, and not just as a sawbones.
|
You can also change the flavour of the alchemy while keeping the mechanics.
No more liquids, now everything is powdered ingredients. Grind up all the necessary herbs and reagents. Instead of imbibing, you can: snort the powder, or if that is too close to drug use, you can put the powder in small pouches and empty the pouches on your tongue.
As mentioned previously, at 2nd level an Alchemist gets a 'Discovery'. Frost bombs are ideal for ship-to-ship boarding. No more fire hazards, until you want something to burn on purpose.
Finally, without any changes at all, there's the much loved stereotype. The alchemist seated at his desk, said desk full of beakers and goblets. Everything (chair, desk, room contents, bed, bookcase, storage chest) rhythmically sliding back and forth in unison across the room as waves rock the boat. Not a drop is spilled as the alchemist goes about their work.