I am looking to spice up my players time in skull and shackles. Right now they controll 2 ships so the usual pirate encounters just arnt too interesting. So, I am looking for good aquatic monster to throw at them in a "moby dick" kind of sea battle.
What sea monsters would be good to fight their ships, when they use the ship combat rules? I already tried a dragon, but with its flight, that just didnt work out.
My players are at 4th level right now, so it cant be something that would just climb on deck and one shot them either. Is there something like a lower CR charybdis that you guys know off?
How are you handling pursuit of the prey? Each pirate ship pilot needs to make a separate skill check. With a d20, there will likely be differences in their results which means one pirate ship getting to the prey before the other resulting in a 1-on-1 fight (made tougher by the PCs being split between the 2 ships).
If the pirate ships want to stay together, that would mean both pilots accepting the lower of the two skill checks which means a lot more prey escaping (resulting in less plunder and a less happy crew).
As for sea monsters, take a look at the different Sea Serpents in Dead Man's Chest from Necromancer Games.
As for persuit, we usualy dont bother for 2 reasons. 1, that best of 3 rolls thing or combat dosent happen just annoys players. 2, they never fail the rolls anyway. This is due to the super high profession sailor checks the 2 pilots have.
First thing they did on hitting port the first time was buy rings of profession sailor +5. This means none of the prewritten random encounter ships can outrun them, and most cant outfight them. Thats why i was looking into monster encounters.
Sea Monster-wise : take a look at Pathfinder Chronicles : Monsters of Mystery. A Sea Serpent or water orm taking a good chomp out of the rudder might really even things up.
Also the "Sea Scourge" from Isles of the Shackles (while it certainly sets my mind into convulsions with an acid producing ooze immersed in saltwater, ok, nevermind the chemistry) might be fun...
In Savage Tides (back in the final Dungeon issues) there was some Kelp monster attacking ships in a bay. Creeping up the sides abd such
or go with a fiendish-templated whale ? "Moby the devil whale"
Overall - aquatic monsters do have the massive advantage of submerging (going out of range and LoE).... fun if they are patient. And actually... should win any "fair" battle against a group of 4th level pirates.
1) Alter the prof sailor checks for the random ships, there is nothing to say that you have to stick with whats in the book. If they are not a challenge then make them one. Give the pilots of the opossing ships higher prof salior checks than the players that will give them something to think about.
2) As above but have the players become the hunted. A good way would be as the players are closing in on a ship to grapple have another appear on the edge of the map and close for pursuit firing on them when they get within range.
3) Add in some hazards such as a kelp forest maybe or a reef then need to avoid, im pretty sure somewhere along the line they will stuff up a roll and end up with a damaged ship, then send in a prey ship as above. You could even add in a weather element if needed to spice things up giving poor visabilty or making sailor checks more dfficult.
4) Look at the bestaries in the back of the AP's, there are a number of interseting challenging ships not stated but could prove to be a problem.
5) There are plenty of sea monsters for the players to be wary of in the isle of the shackles book as well as those in dead man's chest as Mandor says (its a great book, pdf at drivethrough RPg well worth getting). If all else fails and you want to give them a real challenge...
as they say in the original Clash of the Titans...
UNLEASH THE KRAKEN....