Running S&S for 3 PCs

[Groundworm]

I'm going to be running Skull & Shackles for a group of 3 very close friends. We've been gaming together for about 20 years, and we tend to create very combat-capable characters. Our games are traditionally heavily combat-oriented with little RPing, and my group tends to hate/distrust NPCs and kill them off.

In S&S, I'm less worried about them killing off the NPCs since that will have very real penalties with their shipboard relations. I'm a little more concerned as to how they'll be able to handle the encounters with just the 3 of them.

I'm planning on having them create characters with point buy, 20 points. Do I need to give them more points? Do I need to adjust the encounters in Wormwood Mutiny?

[OscarMike]

3 players is going to be rough. I'd say the 25pt. character build wasn't out of the question since ship to ship combat is going to be very tough and they're going to be a lot busier once they get their own ship.

If you don't want to go that route and want to stick to 20pt.builds make sure you're wiling and able to play more effective NPCs than you would in a normal scenario. If your PCs are distrustful you're going to have to try that much harder to get those players like them.

[vikingson]

Shipboard : your call. But be really prepared to lose some PCs before the group "gets" the idea of what killing people aboard means for them. Sounds like a far from ideal group for that part of the adventure

Also make them capable of dealing with the varied danger on Bonewrack. Which means, capable of dealing with underwater combat (hard on gunslingers and alchemists), swarms, paralysis, runners alerting neighbouring encounters.

Although, if they mutiny early and simply do not care for the NPCs, they might even totally miss out on Bonewrack.