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So I've been looking into starting a seafaring game (not exactly S&Sh, but something like it) for a little while now, but one thing that kind of bothers me is how limited ship variety is. Sure, you can buy modifications, but that really doesn't cover the broad range of ships that I'm sure are sailing about in Golarion.
One thing I always liked about the old 3.5e Stormwrack book was the decent variety of ships you could get. Not just the default "sailing ship", but cogs, pinnaces, drommands, and the like. Especially at low levels, having the PC's commanding a Pinnace means they could command the thing all by themselves and not need more than a couple of crew,
Does anyone have any pointers about how to convert these ships into Pathfinder rules? In particular, determining Base Save, hp, total squares of sail and rigging, etc.
Dotted.
I'm looking into this as well - hybridizing the Stormwrack ships and movement rules with the officer combat options from Fire as She Bears!, hoping to find a decent balance between the fast playability of 3.x and the granularity (and cannons) of FaSB.
I am looking at fire as she bears and that seams a better resource then stormwrack.
FaSB definitely has its merits - everybody gets to do something in a ship battle, instead of just the captain and the gunner, and it would be great for a party that has the time and money to build their own ship. The reason I'm thinking to hybridize is that FaSB presumes the use of cannons, which do considerably more damage than ballistae and catapults. They deal with this by making ships a bit tougher, but it is waaaaay too easy for me to see my party to just bombard every encounter in the book to dust from a distance. So, I'm planning to use FaSB combat rules, but with the Stormwrack ships.
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I am looking at fire as she bears and that seams a better resource then stormwrack.
I think that Fire as She Bears is better for ships and ship combat, but Stormwrack really shines in its first chapter. The sections on Water Hazards (currents, oceanic diseases), Marine Terrain (coral reefs, ship decks with their pitching and rolling movement and washes of green water over the deck), and Voyages (excellent random weather/wind direction and strength/rain charts, navigation rules) are all very useful.
From Chapter 3, I'm thinking about incorporating the Legendary Captain prestige class (with some modifications - as written it pushes Leadership into the stratosphere), and borrowing some elements from the Scarlet Corsair to spice up Paizo's Shackles Pirate.
In Chapter 4, Knowledge (Naval Architecture/Engineering) is a nice addition, and the navigation rules from Chapter 1 pick up again under Knowledge (Geography). Some of the feats in Chapter 4 strike me as over-powered, but I think some of them would fit in nicely with the feats from Fire As She Bears. In particular, Great Captain (use Aid Another to aid multiple sailors performing a given action), Steam Magic (converts fire spells into more reliable steam spells underwater) and Old Salt (bonuses on some typical sailor skills and weather prediction) are potentially very useful.
Back on the topic of ships, the variety of types in Stormwrack is nice, but you could simulate any of them pretty easily in FASB.
I am looking at fire as she bears and that seams a better resource then stormwrack.I think that Fire as She Bears is better for ships and ship combat, but Stormwrack really shines in its first chapter. The sections on Water Hazards (currents, oceanic diseases), Marine Terrain (coral reefs, ship decks with their pitching and rolling movement and washes of green water over the deck), and Voyages (excellent random weather/wind direction and strength/rain charts, navigation rules) are all very useful.
From Chapter 3, I'm thinking about incorporating the Legendary Captain prestige class (with some modifications - as written it pushes Leadership into the stratosphere), and borrowing some elements from the Scarlet Corsair to spice up Paizo's Shackles Pirate.
In Chapter 4, Knowledge (Naval Architecture/Engineering) is a nice addition, and the navigation rules from Chapter 1 pick up again under Knowledge (Geography). Some of the feats in Chapter 4 strike me as over-powered, but I think some of them would fit in nicely with the feats from Fire As She Bears. In particular, Great Captain (use Aid Another to aid multiple sailors performing a given action), Steam Magic (converts fire spells into more reliable steam spells underwater) and Old Salt (bonuses on some typical sailor skills and weather prediction) are potentially very useful.
Back on the topic of ships, the variety of types in Stormwrack is nice, but you could simulate any of them pretty easily in FASB.
My biggest complaint with FaSB is that it really isn't useful for "small" ships, like Pinnaces, Coracles, or Barques and the like. It's definately a system designed for massive ships of the line and such.